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Bill Gates Proclaims US High Schools Obsolete
bryan sent us a story about Bill Gates' take on US High Schools. He says
'America's high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that they're broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools even when they're working as designed cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.'"
CmdrTaco went to high school and he still can't even edit Slashdot properly.
Hey for once Bill Gates and I actually agree. HS was fun and I did enjoy a select few classes but for the most part everything else was a waste of time generally designed to prepare students for the years ahead. Not a bad idea in theory, but for those who are already prepared and are actually interested in learning...HS life can be somewhat lacking.
In my opinion college was even worse. Here I am paying thousands of dollars per semester for the same "I'm a kid, beat on me until I can handle Real Life." stuff. I loaded up 18 credits every semester like an eager naive person only to discover 3 (1 class) of those 18 had any relevance whatsoever to my area of specialization. Once in a while another class would act as a supporting class, but more often than not the rest was just filler designed to keep me busy for a few hours every day. The result? After about 3 years of this I was sick of it...I could barely stomach a fourth. I was tired of seeing my money--earned by working--being spent on some idiot teaching an Economics class who readily admit his sole purpose at that university was to make our lives as difficult as possible and possibly actually teach something relevant to the course.
Looking back, I still feel it was a total waste of money. It made my life so miserable I didn't even have time to stop and enjoy the "college life" that many say makes it all worthwhile. It's my money, I should be able to spend it as I please...not to have someone tell me that I have to waste it on filler courses rather than something of actual use and interest to me.
In the end? I discovered I enjoyed the life of employment much more. All those years of having some teacher/professor telling me how hard life is and how clueless and naive all us students were. Truth be told, I learned most of what I use in the workplace either on the job or on my own. Not to mention I was no longer paying my boss to allow me the privilege to work--I was finally being paid to be there!
This critique doesnt happen to co-incide with the release of "Microsoft US high school 2005" does it?
As a recent former High School student, I concur. They spent so much time trying to prepare us to take a test, they didn't stop to think that maybe they should prepare us in general, and design a test that would -- test -- us. We seriously had a class everyday that was nothing but practice testing for the FCAT.
Teaching to educate the students became a lesser priority. Teaching what we needed to pass a test so the school could get a good grade, that is what happened -- and still occuring. Out of the day, at least two hours of it is being spent teaching students nothing but what is on a test. Every single day.
I feel like complaining to someone.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
What they need to know today is that the last time industrialists partnered with the state and made gigantic returns on investment, we called it "World War II". The republicunts are showing all the classic signs.
Put your money where your mouth is, Moneybags!
Alot of high schools are beginning to switch over to linux and open-source applications to save money.
Microsoft HighSchool 2006
"..such as, where they want to go today?" Gates added.
"I mean our high schools even when they're working as designed cannot teach all our students what they need to know today."
so he does propose a microsoft-first-aid course? imagine how everybody were able to fix a simple "i cannot move any icons"-error by themselfs!
thank you bill!
Is he going to start leading the fight against teaching religious fairy tales as scientific fact?
Unfortunately, it's not just high schools, and not just U.S. We are now in the information age where knowledge is accessible through many more sources than the regular "classroom" setting. The world's education system has not changed much since the Middle Ages, whereas technology has.
That's just "broken". Something is obsolete when it is superseded by a superior alternative. I'd be very happy if current high schools were obsolete- it would mean the kids had somewhere else to go that would give them a better education. Sadly this is not the case, so "obsolete" is incorrect.
This is largely a group of Fabians out to preserve the social hierarchy. It's members include everyone from Steve Case to Jack Valenti. Anyway, I just thought you should know who that even if it is Bill advocating the ideas this time, he is really just the spokeman for a larger group.
i think he is referring to public high schools, which ARE quite horrible in america.
here in canada, we have a 1-tier school system (as well as health btw), all normal schools are public, and it works out quite well. note though: our taxes are very high compared to the US.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Public high schools base their education too much on the standardized tests. They teach the students only what they need to know to score well on the tests and therefore make the school look "good".
high schools obsolete? well, perhaps. i just sort of saw them as a waystation between middle school and college (always assuming you manage to pick a good one).
Try this version
He says 'Linux is obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that it's broken, flawed or junk, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean Linux even when working as designed compare to windows today.'
It's all the same drivel with a few words edited. I suggest we stop posting crap by this guy because he's clearly talking out his arse all the time and only gets away with it because he rode the "in 2000 we'll be in flying cars" fad of his era and is now a rich bastard out of touch with the world he helped create.
I like muppets.
That's why they have the "Running Start" program. So that your sophmore or junior year, you have the option to go to college and your public school will pay for the credits...
As for me, I'll wait until netcraft can confirm this.
nothing for you to see here, move along!
"He said high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college"
What about the kids who cannot afford to go to college. The funding for scholarships is just as important as preparation. As a high school student in Canada but it's not extremely different, I know that if kids know they don't have a chance of being able to afford college, they will not even try to go.
costofwar.com states that the money spent on the Iraq war could buy over 7.5 million college scholarships. However, if you have a room full of corporate execs who probably have contracts in Iraq, this is not a favourable opinion.
Even though the density of Ph.D.'s in Taiwan is much high than the density in the USA, why is the USA a much better place in which to live than Taiwan?
I've been blinded by a flash of the obvious!
"I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!" ~8BT
fuck him
Now the magical school, that is where the action is. I can't figure out why people send their kids to public schools, because studies by Magical Schools for Action has proven that "Magical Schools that Solve All Probable and Forseeable Problems" get better test scores. Man, I just don't get people who haven't taken that next step into the future. It's there waiting for you, we just can't keep educating this kids like we're doing it now. Enroll your child in a Magical School that Solves All Probable and Forseeable Problems today. You'll be glad you did.
Brian Seppanen
Minister of Information and Propaganda
Area 54 The Secret Government Disco Labs Provo
a bunch of first graders, drawing a surrealistic picture of motion-blurred 60ies-colored windows floating through the air.
as a Linux loving highschool student i was going to say that i thought Bill Gates and Microsoft to be obsolete...
/TuxRaider
Look at any math curriculum across the upper elementary and middle school grades - it's so much repetition it'll blow your mind. Kids learn almost nothing new in sixth or seventh grade unless they're in pre-algebra. This kind of thing has got to start a lot lower than high school if they're serious about it.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
He also thought that "Microsoft Bob" represented the future of computing, that 640KB of RAM should be enough for everyone, etc. The guy lucked into a fabulous opportunity and held onto it through lies, extortion, establishing a monopoly, and other non-competetive practices.
Yes, the public school system is broken. But I don't have any faith that Gates of all people will have the answer to repairing it.
Even though the density of Ph.D.'s in Taiwan is much high than the density in the USA, why is the USA a much better place in which to live than Taiwan?
Strangely, I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Gates on this one. The High School experience has become that of "7 hours of MCAS-Prep" here in Massachusetts. Hell, they've dropped World History from the curriculum. Entirely. Gotta love the NCLB act, eh?
My Systems
This has been a generally accepted idea for many years. For example, Neil Postman's book "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" advanced the idea back in 1969. He declared that since schools were run by school boards that were responsible to the parents of the schooled kids, and not the kids, schools would always be designed to teach the same things the parents learned, which would by definition already be obsolete.
It's sort of like the old maxims about the military always preparing for the LAST war, and always being unprepared to fight using the methods the NEXT war will require.
I don't see any real solution to the problem. You really can only teach using the methods that presumably worked on the past generation, there's no proven track record for experimental techniques in teaching. I've taken courses in college by teachers developing new methods and the classes were just as likely to be a disaster as a success.
because of those linux-lamo-criminals who pirate well developed software.
where have the good ol' days of crack dealing gone.
well, what an amazing modern time we live in..
I TAed CS to college undergrads and once I was trying to teach C code for finding factorial to the class (most of them had already completed 75% credits).
There was a pindrop silence and finally one tard managed to ask "what is a factorial?"
This stuff is taught to Indian children in their 6th grade. And they are learning binary number system in 6th grade. And they are going to normal Govt maintained public schools.
HS education in US is a JOKE!
HS is 4 years. However, the educational value is much less than that. I think the average US HS curriculum can be mastered in one year by a bright teenager.
The bottom line is that after sixth grade, there should be three options:
1. Smart kids do a college prep track
2. Dumb kids do a vocational track
3. Troublemakers go to reform school
Gates is right-on.
The public school system is trying to be everything for everybody and has wound up being nothing for nobody. (I love the irony of that last sentence!)
It's not jsut broken -- it is based on a paradigm that is obsolete. No amount of "fixing" is going to work. We must rethink the entire enterprise.
If we continue to manufacture passive students ready for 19th century factory work and then complain about all the factory jobs going overseas, well we got what we asked for -- an outdated workforce.
The new age will be creativity and knowledge-based, and will require students to work in knowledge areas as adeptly as master bricklayers build stone walls.
The Titanic is going down -- we had better stop re-arranging the deck chairs and start building a new boat.
In the Bronx (my place), Bill Gates always promotes smaller schools (basically by splitting up giant high schools into small "academy"-type schools; my second HS after Bronx Science was the first of many), and my college (and high schools before that) are filled to the brim with Windows PCs. It's no coincidence; he wants to fund schools too, if only to put teh Windows logo in them.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
My daughter is in college and she's going to be getting $10 an hour for tutoring high school kids in a method called AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). It includes 'Cornell note taking' and other techniques. She, and the other tutors, indignantly wanted to know why they had not been exposed to this when THEY were in high school. "I'd have probably gone to Harvard," she told me. That's just one obvious example of how our schools do things much the way they did a century ago, even though we've learned a lot about neuroscience since then. Math, especially, is badly taught here in most schools (rote rule-learning instead of letting kids beat their head against a problem and then giving them the shortcut, a superior approach used in many a foreign classroom). And then there's the funding mess, what with local property taxes and all. Do you seriously think wealthy elites all want the inner-city ragamuffins to get an equally good education and compete for jobs against their own offspring? Why do you suppose those punitive, distracting high-stakes tests are applied to public schools, but not to private/parochial schools nor homeschoolers? Jeepers, the schools here are a headache.
I think he finally got one right you know. How many schools in foreign countries require calculas in their schools i think all high schools should have 4 years of english 4 years of math 4 years of history 4 years of pe (because you know we need it) 4 years of computers and electives (this is the geek portion ;)
4 years of science
When will schools be fully funded, I want to hear a dollar amount given? But I would like to bet you that even with that dollar amount, our education system will still fail. It's corrupted to the core and needs to be scrapped or overhauled dramatically.
...is a huge mistake. Our education systems have become a government propaganda machine first, and jobs programs for teachers second, and an under funded pensions system third. There are only scraps left over for actual education of children.
My high school just didn't offer any kind of preparation for college-level courses, especially in the math department. The only computer course it had was basically Microsoft Office 101. We didn't even have basic calculus. The highest level course offerred was Trigonometry for Christ's sake. While important, this is not nearly enough to prepare you for college. I had to take a few remedial courses just to catch up to where I should have been. This included basic courses like College Algebra and Trigonometry. It was kind of embarassing that I would have to go through these classes as a Computer Engineering student. But doing it definately helped to build my math foundation. I found Calculus classes to be relatively easy. Differential Equations was a bit hard at first, but that turned out to be my favorite math class.
Today I feel confident in my math skills, but it would have been easier and I would have made progress faster if my high school had any decent offerings in the math department. On the other side, I think the langauge skills were sufficient. As you can see, I can form full sentences using (mostly) correct grammar and punctuation. I am also somewhat of a grammar/spelling Nazi, so maybe it was more self-education than anything else. We did have a Latin class, though. I don't remember much, but it helped somewhat in my literature classes. The Latin teacher was really great.
I guess public high schools can be a mixed bag. You'll have a very few great teachers, some bad teachers, and the rest will be somewhere inbetween. Students need to take an active role in their eduation if they want to get ahead of the pack. I wish I had known this when I was still in high school.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
"The most blunt assessment came from Microsoft chief Bill Gates, who has put more than $700 million into reducing the size of high school classes through the foundation formed by him and his wife, Melinda. He said high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college"
Hmmm. So Bill, what of the say twenty percent of the population who just aren't going to be able to make the grades to get into college? The left hand side of the bell curve so to speak.
Used to be that those folks would train for a trade or even go to work for a manufacturer or similar employer where loyalty and hard work would make up for a lesser intelligence.
Whoops - those jobs have been shipped offshore.
What of the twenty percent of the population who might have good enough grades to get into a college, but who can't afford the tuition or the loans? Sure some folks can work two jobs and attend college full time, but that's not possible for every student in the country.
Bill, before offering half baked solutions to the "education problem" try to think of one that takes all of these people into consideration.
Three Squirrels
As a current High School student, I concur. A story was posted awhile back about how the schooling system essentially evolved as a submissive-working-class production line, and I've found this view to be exceedingly accurate. It's become very apparent to me that the High School grading system has nothing whatsoever to do with actual intelligence and absolutely everything to do with ability to follow directions. Aside from that, I couldn't dream of quantifying how ridiculously unhealthy twelve years of getting up at around six in the morning, being forced to take part in things you don't at all enjoy, averaging four to five hours a night (in the later years, anyway), and not eating when you're hungry is (AND APPARENTLY NOT LEARNING ANYTHING ABOUT SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION EITHER). To boot, 90% or more of what I've learned in the past four years has been learned on my own free time, spending too much time online. The fact is that high school fucking sucks. But everyone who could possibly change it no longer has to put up with it, ergo no longer gives a shit. Good to at least see the idea getting around, anyway.
The school system here, cuts classes that could help our career. They are starting to only offer basic and some Pre-AP/AP classes. But the only tech part of our Science-Math-Technology magenet is freshmen typing or web design.
On the high schools going about the tests. Well orginally in the SMT, as stated above, when you are a freshmen you take Physics and Chemistry. Well now ts just basic science to prepare the students for next years standardized state test.
Of course high schools are obsolete - If children are being taught to reject the notion of evolution in some states, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Every year it seems as less importance is placed on teaching science in schools. Simply purchasing a computer for students is not a magic solution that can grow geniuses - we all know that.
Sadly, schools will never be reformed properly while the current administration (and all of its followers) decide the course for our children.
articles are obsolete too
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Living on the edge of nowhere,i have to learn all the time,since i started working 10 Years ago.So if the company goes poof,i could search for jobs needing other skills.
It is the fault of the students. Even my private school has had this problem. I have excelled in all my classes and received high honours. However, 85% of the students get poor grades that are not honourable. And it is all their fault. Their mindset "chemistry is boring, and math is too hard" is their own fault and they don't deserve an education if they don't even care about learning.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
Why should we listen to a college dropout talk about the importance of education?
I agree that it is important, but what makes a college dropout an authority on education?
And it reminds me of this book review pointed to me by a someone:s html?tid=146&tid=103&tid=6
http://books.slashdot.org/books/04/09/06/1722203.
Keep meaning to pick a copy up.
Quoting the header:
"His verdict is not what you'd expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate. Skeptical? So was I."
All it takes is initiative. Which is something kids today have never needed to learn. I think kids are in a situation where they expect success to be handed to them even if they don't bother to try. And this story is just more ammo to blame the teachers, blame the government, blame blame blame.
If your kids are dumb, if they don't feel the need to learn, it's your fault. Teach your kids that things in life aren't just handed away.
Many colleges and universities end up having to teach what their students should have learned from half-assed high school teachers. Alternative schools can give someone their diploma in a half the time it would take a regular high school. In high school, many teachers just waste the time and don't teach anything. The taxpaying public get nothing for their tax dollars and elementary teachers get the axe when it's time crunch the budget. High school teachers receive higher pay than elementary teachers who help students learn. It's time to change that.
Let's see... Teachers aren't paid enough, so while a child is growing up, they are bombarded with images of money, possessions and other *bling* by TV and celebrites who are otherwise uneducated (anybody think that the actors/actresses/singers are college grads?). So these children see these images and want professions that pay well enough to buy this crap. Teacher isn't one of them.
Sure being a teacher is a honorable profession, but it barely pays the bills. My mother has been a teacher for 20yrs and I made more than her after 3 years as an engineer. She made have taught over 400 students in her career, and how is it that I make more than her? How many doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers have resulted from passing through her class?
If you pay the teachers more, then you'll have more people WANTING to become teachers which will increase the quality of those who teach..
-HockeyPuck
High Schools are still not even touching how one can handle and manage their own finances. They preach they're preparing people for the real world, yet most kids have no idea how to live inside a budget, manage wealth, etc. How to handle money is a critical skill that almost eveyone needs. How cooking, shop, phsycial education, etc can be forced onto every student, yet there is no financial training whatsoever is mind-boggling.
Hey Billy Boy....there's a reason most people go to college. It's so we can finish learning what we need to know to survive. College Lesson #1: Micro$oft is bad
Mr Gates not only will tell you what software to use and how to use it, he will tell you your philosophy/religion/political views are wrong and that you're only an anachronic commie.
By the way, he will also tell you what you have to learn and read, he knows better than your parents, your teachers and your best friends.
Fear of a world where the only book of truth you can read is Encarta.
Shame on you, Mr Gates.
Maybe I went to an incredibly good high school, but I found myself very well prepared (academically) for college. I'll admit that my High School was somewhat known for it's excellence in science ... but the key is it was a public school that anyone in the area could go to and anyone else could test into. We offered a program called International Baccalaureate which is light-years ahead of AP in terms of college preparation.
I agree that the majority of HS are not doing their job ... but there are still some that do. Having programs that are accessible for the motivated student and that challenge them is absolutely key to ensuring that students are able to succeed in college.
Several commenters have indicated that both High School and College were worthless because they were forced to endure non-technical classes that were outside their major fieldof study. Too freakin' bad! College (at least, a good college) is not supposed to be a trade school that teaches you how to be a Linux system admin - it's supposed to teach you a broad knowledge base that will help you to write, to read, to learn and to live. If you wanted to get a certificate as a sysadmin, there's non-college options for that. That being said, I'm just as annoyed by Gate's statement that everyone should be going to college after high school. Get real! Not everyone needs to, wants to, or has the ability to make it through a 4 year college. What the US needs it not necessarily more college graduates, but rather a better (and more widely accepted) technical school alternative. Then maybe the folks that are posting about hating college wouldn't have felt compelled to go there in the first place.
What I see now, not when I was a kid, is that they dont teach the subjects anymore. No, now they teach for a test, the MCAS or what ever the state mandated test is for your state. How is that learning? All you know after HS now is how to take one specific test.
My brother scored in the top 1% of the state on this test and got a free ride to ANY MA school. That's great except even he feels that he learned nothing while in school. In history they didn't teach him about WWII or Ancient Greese, he learned what the test would most likely ask and how to answer it properly. In english he didn't learn sentence structure he learned how the test is layed out and how to take it with the time that was permited.
That is a tragedy. My brother is damn smart, he was getting B's in subjects before anyone knew he was dislexic (sp?) and A's after. Now, instead of continuing to learn new things they cram this test on them in EVERY class, even the AP classes.
This is the future of the US school system, learn to take a test so the school doenst get fined/lose money for have a low passing turn out of the state test.
The worse part about this test? It makes the SAT's seem tame because you are allowed X amout of times to take it and if you fail then you are NOT ALLOWED to graduate, period. Here in MA you would have to get a GED after this. So, if you are not good at taking tests or are just too nervous taking it and blow it, bye bye graduation.
I can understand wanting to evaulate schools to see if they are up to a national standard but holding the school hostage to them by holding funding over their heads and pinning it on the kids if they fail (may NOT be their problem if the school just plain sucks, they cannot take a test, or are so pressured they blow it) is just out right wrong to the core. It just takes what ever basic knowledge HS used to teach and throws it out the window.
I wrote this on K5 to explain how to hack the college admissions system through sports, so that you can still get into college no matter how bad your school is. This is based on my own personal experience, but I have tried to make it as geek friendly as possible.
US schools are only going to continue spiralling downhill as religious fairy tells are taught as scientific fact.
you tell em Bill, 'cause I love your commentry on everyday life and we all need to improve and well...I know we can only humbly hope to one day be as pefect and pure as your Windows software..but we try. We need more of your wisdom Bill, more so we can evolve and improve as a people. Take us to the promised land. Tell us how to be better humans. I want to learn from you.
We want to watch as you solve the world's ills, cure diseases and fight famine and poverty
Now fuck off and die
I can't more highly recommend this essay by Paul Graham as an explanation of why public schooling is so poor. Don't be misled by the title of the essay: that's just the perspective he takes on a more extensive problem.
Unfortunately, Gates doesn't see the real problems: he's right in that public schools don't tailor their education to what students actually need, but he doesn't for instance address the problem of overcredentialling, which is a result of the perception (and, unfortunately, the reality to a large extend) that a degree is necessary to be successful, combined with the fact that most colleges sell degrees, *not* educations. That's somewhat ironic, considering Gates himself has earned no degrees.
Additionally, follow Gates' suggestion to make high school universally more preparatory for college, and you'll see college become as pointless and as irrelevant to success as high school, because more people will go to college without any reason better than "I need a degree in order to get a good job," which will water down the meaning of a college degree as most of those people will spend an additional four years drinking and delaying adulthood instead of learning something useful through a more efficient means (e.g., apprenticeship) that will enable them to get a good job.
You can already see this process happening to a certain extent, as masters' degrees and professional certifications are required to get certain jobs simply so recruiters can cut down the number of resumes they need to sift through, despite the fact that the smartest ones aren't necessarily the most credentialled.
Personally, I'm sick and tired of the education racket: high school should be sufficient for 90% of people to get jobs, but it isn't; so most of these people go to college. Unfortunately, college doesn't prepare kids for jobs either, but instead provides a place for them to socialize while forcing them to take numerous courses unrelated to their eventual job in order to get a liberal arts degree that costs a lot but signifies absolutely nothing except, "I went to college and that other guy didn't, so give me the job instead of him."
I paid $130,000 to get my undergrad degree. I had a great time in college, but how much of that crap do I use today? I certainly didn't learn software engineering in college courses, despite being a computer science major: most of my software engineering skills were honed doing my own projects, in HS, college, grad school, and in my job. If it weren't for the education racket, I might have been able to save myself $130,000 and get a real paying job four or five years earlier. Think of the productivity that's being wasted.
[ home ]
If parents had the backbone to discipline their own kids, maybe they would also discover the backbone to demand results of the local school board.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I'm a high school senior right now. I have become so bored with my understimulating classes that I've completely dropped 3 and I wade out the day waiting for it to be over. There just isn't something there.
I've learned most of what I know from the early Discovery Channel, TLC, various other TV stations, and the internet.
The only reason I'll survive is because I started programming when I was 12. Hopefully, that's one redeeming quality that wont be lost in rush to get to college.
I go to school from 8:45 to 2:10 every day, I relearn the same material 3 times every 2 days, once in my Banking & Finance class, once in my Personal Finance class, and once in my Economics class. It's driving me absolutely insane.
I can't wait till college, really, when I can have internships and advanced computer science courses to really stimulate my brain...
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Bill's right but low and off the mark, it's American Universities that suck and prepare you for absolutely nothing by wasting your time and filling your head with useless crap.
Yes. This was true when I endured high school (during the 1970s), and it's more true today. Schools as we know them were designed by and for the industrial age.
Alvin Toffler has given this a lot of thought: -kgj
-kgj
I never thought I'd be agreeing with Bill Gates on anything.
our Education system was designed for children at the begining of the industrial age. assembly line schools for assembly line jobs. individual creativity was not to be encouraged, as these chidren were being trained to endure the mundane life of a factory worker.
it also had a neat side effect: the students weren't very educated. the designer of the system actually touted this as one of the good points.
it's a sad commentary on our education system when I can state with no hesitation that Bill Gates is not only right, but could design a better one.
Now all teachers in the world should shit bricks. How much bull can we take from this guy anyhow? We still need line workers... service workers... keyword is INTERPERSONAL SKILLS. Step down Billy before you make a complete fool of yourself.
From TFA:
The problem here is that, in my own experience, a lot of instructors in public schools today confuse a challenging course that induces critical thinking and development of analytical and practical skills with a course that throws large amounts of busywork at students. I attended 3 high schools, one was Punahou Academy, one was Carlisle High School, and one was Patch High School. The first, being an exclusive private school, also had the most challenging curriculum, and the most creative teachers who. The second had the most busywork, and the least creative teachers. The last had a fair blend of both busywork and critical thinking, but leaned towards the truly challenging side.
These three schools stood at disparate places on the funding scale. Punahou charges a high tuition for their students, and pays their teachers wonderfully, enough to attract even those who hold PhDs. Patch was second on the list, being funded by the Department of Defense for teaching overseas military kids. Their benies were good and their pay-scale was fairly high relative to States-side schools. Carlisle was an underfunded school, where there just wasn't enough money to attract enough teachers who could deal with turning around undermotivated kids.
It's been my experience that there's a high correlation between money available to finance schools and the quality of education. Money and availability of resources attracts motivated people. I'm not saying that the public school systems should be expected to pay out what Punahou does to attract bright teachers, but when garbage-men (sorry, "sanitation engineers") make more than teachers, it's not surprising that a lot of people that end up in public education are undermotivated.
There are lots of other factors that go into schools' quality that money can't solve, but increased money and resources is a good start. Bill apparently appreciates that approach, as well, with his donation of over $700M to the cause.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
Hmm... when pursuing a BS in Physics as an undergrad I was required to take 30 credit hours out of 124 in liberal arts and foreign language (which I wouldn't mind in general, but the offerings where I was weren't worth the time and effort). I think there must have been some elective credit hours available on top of that, but I think I spent all of them on the math degree :)
High school does teach us a number of important lessons, but not ones that are immediately apparent:
1) It exposes you to a wide variety of subject matter, so you can decide what you like or do not like. Sure, English Lit sucked. But since you've taken it, you know from personal experience that you'd rather take Science than Lit.
2) You learn to solve problems. Sure algebra is not relevant every day, but you learned how to analyze a problem. You apply those same learned skills to different problems every day.
3) You begin to learn to deal with people in social situations. Besides what your parents did or did not teach you, you learn friendship, loyalty, respect ( and it's opposites )
There's a lot of learning always going on, and sometimes the tests aren't always apparent.
I guess It must take san evil entity to recognize a true problem.
I Just graduated from high school last year and even though I realized early on how badly it prepared students for the future, i was unprepared for the shock that I revieved in college. More than 3/4's of my friends had to take one or more remedial classes just to get them to the level at which they could take entry level courses.
I was lucky enough to have several good teachers in Advanced placement courses that prepared me for college, but it continues to amaze me how most studets are unprepared for college life.
I live in NY state and this problem is getting worse. They just lowered requirements for a NY state regents diploma, which does absolutely nothing to help raise the quality of education. Sure, more students will graduate with a Regents Diploma instead of a local diploma, but at what cost?
Bill Gates may be fantastically rich, but he's also a college dropout. He's also hardly a self-made man: his family connections and the role they played in making him who he is today are well-documented elsewhere. While I applaud his philanthropy and sense of civic duty, I would like to see what makes him an expert on education. For what it's worth, I hated high school, was terribly bored, and became a good student only in college. I'm currently a PhD student and I teach undergraduate courses. It is true that many students come in lacking what I thought were basic skills (I'm in the humanities, so I'm talking about writing, history, foreign language, critical thinking, etc.) However, one must consider that a far greater percentage of US high school students _do_ go on to some post-secondary education than in most other countries (Canada being an exception). In most European countries, for example, students are tracked from secondary school on. Japanese students take rigorous exams just to get into a pre-college high school. Of course the tradeoff is that a college education costs far more in the US than just about anywhere else, but I think a big part of the reason that so many US university students come in unprepared is that we accept students who probably wouldn't get in if they were in another country. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Some of these students work hard and get a good education. The rest flunk out, but hopefully they've learned something along the way. My other big beef is with standardized test scores. What we really ought to be teaching students is logical, critical thinking, not rote memorization, which is really what standardized test scores measure. And we shouldn't be taking students out of the classroom to take these inane tests. Talk about a waste of classrom time! Education is to a large degree subjective, and you really can't easily quantify it the way these business types would like. Even if you could, comparisons with other nations are unfair, since most other countries test only the top (university-bound) students, whereas the US test all (or nearly all) students. Statistically, this would skew the results nastily.
"Once in college, one in four students at four-year universities must take at least one remedial course to master what they should have learned in high school, government figures show."
If i only passed 1/4 of a test, i would fail it. Many schools receive an overall score of 50-60 percent on state assessment tests. That's failing. How come they are not fired or shutdown?
Here are the facts. More than 1 million Taiwanese (about 5% of Taiwan's population) have emigrated to mainland China to live and work. The Taiwanese have invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China and voluntarily made Taiwan economically dependent on mainland China.
The Taiwanese do not give a damn about human rights in China. Also, the density of Ph.D.'s in Taiwan is much higher than the density in the USA. Note that learning is much more than mathematics. The Taiwanese mind that generated $100 billion in profits and invested that money in China is the same Taiwanese mind that does not give a damn about human rights in China.
The Americans underperform in calculus and engineering economics but outperform in areas of compassion and human rights.
Just like many other large corporations, he has set up an out of state entity to handle the actual sales of their products therefore eliminating the tax base that we run our scholls on.
You have to pay to play.
Maybe Gates should put some money into it then, he's got a few billion dollars, just think what a billion dollars could do for public schools if spent right.
It's one thing to complain but it's another to have the balls to try and change it.. but this is Bill here, he's just donate windows XP to school for every machine instead of giving them the money straight off.
I like muppets.
Ok.. so I haven't read the damned article to see what Billie's opinion is but I have read yours and don't really agree.
I went to a university for computer science. My curriculum was basically 1/3 computer science, 1/3 math and 1/3 other stuff. So was two thirds of those courses a waste?
Well I don't use calculus at my job, in fact I forget most of the details of all those math courses. However, one of the reasons a company wants to hire you is not so much that you know whatever the current exciting programming language is.... but because you can solve problems. One of the best ways to obtain problem solving skills can be though math courses. Who wants an employee who has to ask for help as soon as they see something new that they were not trained exactly for?
Here we have a guy who is the head of a company that makes BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH MONTH selling operating systems.... ...and they can't make one that isn't flawed?
So excuse me if I don't take Bill too seriously?
(and to let you know, I'm about the same age as Bill).
If you're gunning for something like learning by rote, then yes, the library and Internet might be a good replacement for schools. That part, unfortunately, won't teach anyone to think for themselves (sadly, neither does the public and most of the other "High Schools"...). The elementary schools can't really teach more than the basics, because most people aren't quite ready for the needed teaching for reasoning things out.
So, what do you do? You try to fix the High School level teaching to emphasise less rote learning and more reasoning education. By this, I don't mean brainwashing the kids to think a certain way- hell, they're doing that right now in the public schools. I mean that they should be teaching them how to learn on their own (sorry, the basics alone won't get you there...) and to be able to develop knowlege without just memorizing things.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
OTOH, Microsoft's privatized school systems can transform anybody into an actual Certified Engineer in only a few short weeks! It's nothing short of a miracle. Why are we wasting so much time on the current public education system?
We need a federal law now that replaces all public school systems with privately-run certification programs. In the time that our children spend just to obtain a single worthless high school diploma, they could be earning literally dozens of valuable certification degrees.
1 tier?
There's the catholic board which is run totally seperate from the public board and in many municipalities receives much more money (and is run better too- i'm not catholic but if I had kids I'd send them there).
Ontario (as probably other provinces) absolutly has private schools.
Public schools (grammar or high-school) in ontario are _horrible_ glorified day care (where are the 3'r's?). These kids are stupid, but christ at least teach them something to be productive.
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
Education does not produce thoughtful and contemplative adults. You can force kids to read Shakespeare all you like, but most of them will still prefer Big Brother and Jerry Springer.
People have inborn natures. Not everyone has it in them to become a leader or a great thinker. Most people only need to be taught to do a job and conditioned to be decent to each other in their personal lives.
If you try to force higher development on people, you'll only annoy those incapable of it, and trip up those capable. Just give everyone space to do their thing. The normal people will have fun, get little jobs for spending money, and become comfortable with themselves. The exceptional people will pursue deeper understandings and develop uncommon abilities. All will live better lives given the freedom to become what is natural to them.
I am now a 4th year university student. I do not believe HS is irrelevant but major changes are needed.
... that is most of the program).
... isn't this the first sign of disinterest??
I think two major changes are needed to the HS education system: a change in the science, math and english programs. (wait
When I left HS, I went to university in a science program. Boy, was it tough. I never expected university level biology to be so damn hard. Not only should they give some sense of how much work is expected in university in the HS program (the biology stuff was so easy for everyone, we never studied) they should also teach more advanced stuff. Same of chem and physics and math.
As for the enlgish program, Shakespeare is so engrained into the program, I find it will be next to impossible to remove. I think students, should instead, be assigned research papers in upper year (grade 12) where you cannot research on the Internet and should instead have to get academic sources (namely, books and journals). Had I actually done that in HS, I would never have read the Coles notes. What's worse is teachers always tell students not to read the Coles notes.... wait a minute
William H. Gates III dropped out of Harvard on his fat trust fund. Colleges are obsolete, too, when you're already a millionaire, and your corporate lawyer parents help you turn your startup into a monopoly.
--
make install -not war
hiskool is ful of uceless klasses such as histery, englesh, and ekonomiks.
i like komputers, y do i nede to lern to spel? y do i nede to no ekonomiks and histery, that is wat king bush is fer. i kan fokus on komputers and he wil kil the bad gise and get me jobs.
no hiskool was gud enuf for king moses, and its gud enuf fer me!
The public education system is, IMHO, broken beyond all repair. It is broken for a number of easily identifiable reasons:
1) It is the convolution of public finance of education (which is a good thing) with public provision of education (which doesn't seem to work that well).
2) It separates customers (the student, and by extension the parents) from the providers (teachers, and by extention the schools). If you are a student, your teacher doesn't work for you, she works for the school. You aren't a customer of the school, the state government and the local school board are the customer of the school.
3) It is a system without acceptable feedbacks. Elements of the system may fail for decades without meaningful consequences. A given student can be failed for their entire educational career (k-12) without any substantive corrective action being taken.
My proposed solution:
1) Determine how much per pupil you are going to spend.
2) Send a check for that amount to the student (the customer) in care of their parents (as they're educational guardian) every year.
3) Administer an evaluation exams annually to each student. If the student either doesn't perform up to their age level or doesn't show a year or more improvement since the last assessment, then send the case to a special court to appoint a new educational guardian for the child.
As long as the child can demonstrate skills at or above age level or has made a year or more of progress, I DON'T CARE where the money went.
Public finance, customer control, private provision.
Quite frankly, this is absurd. Our school system is absolutely out of control.
The "top students" are held back by a school system designed to create factory workers, a system that doesn't foster creativity. All these absurd feel good plans about improving the performance at the bottom seem to be implemented by holding back the top. Our TOP STUDENTS need to be supported. The future Researchers, Engineers, and Captains of Industry are taken from the people that excel in various areas, those people need to be enabled to achieve, not thrown into an environment where they tend to engage in self destructive behavior that is counter productivity.
After that top 1%, the next 49% need to get a decent well-rounded education that prepares them for college life. They need to learn the skills needed for their middle-class life in suburbia that they are heading towards. They will have a house, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a steady job. Right now, those people tend to NOT be the next 49%, but rather, the children of the previous middle-class... NOT BECAUSE OF SYSTEMATIC RACISM or other stuppid liberal dogma, but BECAUSE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN BROKEN SINCE WWII. We have been shuffling people through an absurd system that was broken with the GI Bill and lots of people randomly going to college. Whoever took advantage of the broken post-WWII situation has set up their family for 3 generations, because the school system DOESN'T give you the skills you need, you get those from your parents who have been playing the game for generations.
With a proper school system, perhaps instead of the next 49% being send to the middle class, we can get that to 59% or 69% and expand the middle class.
The next big chunk, all but the bottom 5-10% should receive basic life skills and knowledge that lets them join society, while encouraging them to learn a skilled trade. Plumbers and Electricians do FINE financially, better than many college graduates. Those are SKILLED positions that aren't being outsourced, and people that aren't made for the office park should be encouraged to become skilled labourers.
As far as the bottom? They should learn whatever life skills we can give them, hopefully a value system that encourages non-criminal behavior, and hope to get them basic skills and that things work out. These PEOPLE WILL NOT have a good life in ANY system, but we shouldn't give them diplomas when they can't read. ALL THAT THAT DOES is devalue the high school diploma.
What hurts your people that SHOULD go to college but can't afford it is the social promotion designed to help them. We have RADICALLY devalued a high school diploma by handing them out to everyone (same thing with a AA/BA), and screwed these people. Let the botom-run drop out, and the next rung be allowed to enter the world with a high school diploma, instead of requiring college for anything in the middle class.
Alex
does anyone elese think education to its very base is obsolete? by this I mean that we go to school so we can get in good colleges learn more and get a better job. Many jobs are spent advancing us in technology, raising the bar even more so that the average person needs even more education to just scrape by. let alone do well. many jobs are done by machines today removing the need for those employees that used to do their work. corporations dont keep those employees and share their work among each other, they fire them. Each working man now does more labor in less time but companys get rid of the extra instead and require the remaining guys to work longer or elese they loose their job. it is not our presidents fault that our unemployment is so high, it is corporate america that needs to change its ways. or better yet do away with corporate america and replace it with a scocialist structure that will make sure every able man has a job, food, and a roof. so everyone has the basics and can survive. people will be happier and the work will still be done.
1. The US high school system is so obsessed with its democratic origins that it still strives to treat and educate every child the same. This doesn't work. Essentially, we have a system that imposes a K-12 college preperatory mindset on every student that comes through. By this, I mean that we aim to put every kid through Chemistry, Physics, four years of English, Pre-Calculus, etc. Contrast this approach with many foreign systems that break kids off at the 9th or 10th grade equivalent into the kids who want to be in hard-core academics and the kids who need real vocational training. Don't knock vocational training, either; a good auto mechanic or plumber makes more than I do teaching those "academic classes." This "all equal" mindset has placed us in a position where school districts and communities have essentially had to rig up an equivalent to the foreign system; honors and AP/IB classes that actually challenge and teach the "academic minded" ones, and regulars classes that are lax enough to allow the kids through who ordinarily wouldn't ever sit in a chemistry class.
Please don't take my comments up there to imply that everyone should be hard focused on only the courses needed for what they plan to "do." As an English teacher who pushed all the way through Calculus, non-trivial Biology, and some CS courses at the Uni, I appreciate the idea of learning for learning's sake. I also recognize that there are huge amounts of people out there who don't.
2) We've gotten "dumber." This is where the root of most of our problems begin. Go look at an application for any university. They have a section where they state their minimum SAT requirements for admission. For a University that has set their minimum requirement at 1100 (for example), there will be a fine print that reads, "or 1030 for tests prior to 1994." Why? Well, the ideal for the SAT is that the average score is 1000. Unfortunately, around the late 80's and early 90's, the scores started declining more than a normal deviation could account for. The average was closer to 920. So the SAT was made "easier." Somewhere between the 70's and the 90's, we all collectively lost an intelligence level that our prior generation had.
I see it all day long in the school system. Homework is a lesser priority; I can't even assign an out-of-class reading, because it won't get done and my lesson the next day will be worthless. Academic journals targetted at teachers have articles on how to create alternatives to homework that will actually get done, which is something I highly doubt they broached in the 70's. Standards have to be lowered; if I were to fail the number of kids who really need to fail, I'd be out of a job. And don't even get me started on the priority athletics and similar extracurriculars take over academics, or the paltry sum (and respect) given to educators in this country.
Take your normal standardized test complaint. Yes, they take away from class time. Yes, I use learning time to prep for these things. But they aren't really all that difficult, and it's hard to argue against any claim that they cover things you should already have discussed in the classroom (in most cases). I have no doubt that a 1970's era classroom, poor or no, could tackle an English or Math standardized exam with less preparation than an '05 classroom would need, and still score better. We really are "dumber" than the prior generation (I say "we" here because I am part of this group).
There are hundreds of theories on why this is the case. I'm not going to pretend that I can explain any of them. Parental involvement is lower with the severe proliferation of two-income households. The burgeoning American obsession with consumer debt both drives the previous issue and misleads students into thinking that a $25K/year job in their late 20's will allow them to have an Escalade and a nice house. The disrespect of education and school in general is an ingrained part of our culture. We are one of the few school systems worlwide t
But BG is right. High Schools (all public schools really, and not just in the US) were designed around the concept of a socialist industrial society (which thankfully never fully materialized in this country). It was a blatant attempt by wealthy industrialists at the turn of the century to remake American culture into something that would better benefit them. A lot of damage has been done to our culture as a direct result of this system of education.
I would go one step further than Bill Gates and say that when our school systems are functioning perfectly as designed, they actually prevent education rather than enable it. Any kid who learns anything during their time in a public school does so IN SPITE of the school system, not because of it.
I disagree however that all high schools should be preparing their students for college. College is not the only choice and college students are not the only people this country needs. I hate to break the cold hard reality to Gates et al that we do still need industry. We do still need service workers (lots of them since our culture and economy are practically built on the service industries).
I'd like to see a slight resurgence in vocational schooling as well as schools that better prepare students for further education. We need both of these things, and neither of these needs are being met by the current system.
I'd also completely disagree with those posters who think we should be careful when moving forward with these changes. I think we should be radical. I think we should be a little reckless. Let different states try different things. Let people experiment. Throw the old system out into the trash violently and let chaos reign for a short while. Let evolution decide which system works the best. We've been so conservative and frightened of change for so long now, that our students are struggling to learn anything. Taking things slow and being safe has gotten us into this mess.
It's time for the NEA to be shut out of the discussion. It's time for the current system to die, immediately. The cost of taking this slow and safe is much much higher than the cost of rapid change. Our kids are already stuck in a worthless system. Protecting it won't do them any good. Throw it out and be reckless for a while. The best ideas in education will rise out of the wild experiments, and things will settle down after a while as those ideas start to spread and take over.
It's time to take a risk, because not taking a risk will end up being the same as not doing anything at all.
I certainly don't.
And if Gates had his way, everyone would be educated to pay him royalties for crap that doesn't work while surpressing any Real knowledge.
...of the public education system.
Its purpose is to provide jobs for members of the National Education Association teachers' union so they can pay union dues to the NEA, so the NEA can in turn contribute to the campaigns of politicians who vote for higher pay for teachers who can then pay higher union dues to the NEA who can then contribute more to their pet politicions who...
This is the only explanation that makes sense when consider that the United States spends on average $9,000 per year per student (a quarter of a million dollars per year per classrom) and half of them can't even read when they graduate.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
I know this will sound like an advertisement. But if you are a parent, you MUST read some of Mel Levine's work. He's a pediatrician whose sole work is to encourage and teach children how to maximize their learning based on their aptitude. If I can explain the gist of his beliefs, he believes the school systems today are too reliant on performance based on standardized tests; parents are too hung up on "college prep" when they should be stuck on teaching their children "life prep;" and there is no such thing as "well-roundedness" (by packing a child's schedule with unneeded even detrimental extracurricular activities) and he labels it "mental obesity."
Each child is wired differently and it's the schools job to identify how the child is wired and to approach their teaching according to how the child learns, rather than sticking with the current monolithic system that essentially espouses the "one size fits all" model. As a parent it is imperative that you learn how your child learns and foster that. He believes that the current system is one of the reasons why there are so many children returning home from college, "living in the basement," with nary an idea of what to do with their lives or what steps to take next because all their lives, decisions were made for them.
One thing that he advocates quite vocally is that children should read more biographies. His reasoning is that if they are interested in a certain field, biographies give a glimpse of the "untold" aspects of the career that is often overlooked, like office politics and the social involvements required in certain careers.
His two most popular books:
A Mind at a Time
Ready or Not, Here Life Comes
You can also learn more about his organization All Kinds of Minds online.
Also, for a quick "intro" of his program, you can hear an online interview with him by Susan Page at the Diane Rehm Show. He talks about everything from the current school system to the increasing diagnoses of ADHD among children.
Linux at home
Let me guess, Bill's new foundation will fix this obsolescense in schools by selflessly providing a bunch more Windows computers to every school. Gates' commitment of this money (which may just be in MS software licensing fees that cost nothing for MS to provide) would sound more altruistic if he mentioned how the money would be spent, and what in particular (ie. invoicable items) it would be spent on.
Since this detail is neglected, one can only assume this is MS' latest attempt to furtherly penetrate schools for market share, while at the same time looking like heroes to society. This is an old trick.
Look at how generous I am, giving away all these free razors! Now come and buy the razor blades from me.
If anyone knows how the money will be spent, by all means, post it and prove me wrong!
Your opionion states that you are obviously partial to your view of Bill Gates being an ass, and you're intolerent of anything he or his money helps accomplish.
I bet you got something pithy to say about the 4.1 billion dollars he's given away in his foundations Global Health Initiative, the 2.2 billion in Education, 300 million to Global Libraries, and 500 million to local communities in the Pacific Northwest.
funny, i was thinking the same thing about your post.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Wheelbarrow posts a response with a similar sentiment, so in a way this is a "me too." But I think it's important to note. The best thing about college is not its narrow vocational training to do one specific thing; nor should we try or hope to make it this. College, at its best, expands the world view of students, and makes them generally knowledgeable people.
Literature, philosophy and other humanities are certainly important for everyone to study--even those folks who want careers in scientific or technical subjects. But so, for that matter, are comparative scientific areas. Linguists should have a smattering of physics. And Chemist aren't hurt by knowing something about sociology. And so on. Not because the one science will directly inform work in the other, but just because the best *humans* know many ideas.
This isn't to say, of course, that every college course is any good for anyone. Some teachers, frankly, suck (I've been a college professor too; I believe one of those who didn't suck). And some curricula are backwards, misguided, or just badly designed. But that applies equally across all fields. Paying for a bad class isn't fun, it is true. But the merit of a class shouldn't be judged on narrow technocratic grounds... how much of a better trained monkey can it make you.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Quoted by rueger: 'The most blunt assessment came from Microsoft chief Bill Gates, who has put more than $700 million into reducing the size of high school classes through the foundation formed by him and his wife, Melinda. He said high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college....'
It's comforting (and simultaneously disheartening) to see that old Bill is talking out of the same fallacious American trap so many people spend their whole lives operating under. Namely, it's the 'college as end-sought' theory, where parents spend their whole lives pushing little Timmy to 'go to college' without (in many cases) considering what it MEANS to go to college and more importantly, that all colleges are not equal. Combine that with the fact that a substantial portion of graduates are majoring in 'business' (I got my info from Paul Fussell and will dig it up if you all really need it) and you end up with a country that regards college as some categorical end-all be-all without noting that Oral Roberts University is not providing the same education as the University of Pennsylvania. Trade schools are getting promoted to the level of 'universities' by the expedient method of having a name change and eventually the more nebulous and esoteric 'majors' of classics, history and physics will keep being replaced by generations of business and 'administration' majors. So what kind of college does Bill want to prepare children for? Saying 'college' doesn't mean a whole lot.
High schools are not obsolete. They're not efficient or full of advanced learning, but every student I've known who wanted either of those things found a way to get it elsewhere (other programs or simply with the weight of their own interest.) People work up to the level of their interest, kids no different than adults. Most of them learn how to run in a crowd figure out what other people think, get places on time (theoretically), do what they need to get by, and they keep doing it for the rest of their lives. I think it should be about more than that, but for that you'd have to change not only school, but the character of students.
'Sparrow.'
I think what he (Gates) suggested is: "The richest man of today dropped out of college 20 years ago because he thought college sucked. Kids today must be better, they should drop out of high-school for their best success".
...to teach me really concrete and usefull stuff. Although the basics that school teached me served me well in building my actual knowledge, I think school is only a facilitator in your own learning process. We should not leave it to school to teach us what we need to know in our life. Gates is wrong, for the simple fact that what we need to know is: 1- The basics 2- What we want to know. Anyway, Gates is contradicting himself here. How can he expect him to hire creative people if all they know is what school teached them?
No worries, the federal government is on the case. The problem now is as good as solved.
Arbitrary sig
This time, Gates is right. Our educational system is obsolete. What's the point of spending so much time teaching kids how to calculate when calculators are cheap and abundant? Why teach them to learn how to memorize things when information is readily available through new technologies?
We should be teaching kids how to think critically and how to create new knowledge. Our schools need to focus on human capital development that will drive innovation in society.
A friend of mine's engineering lackey was having problems with a particular scenario in some software he was tasked with implementing.
"""The background to understand his problem. This is a sealed bid auction. Contingency bidding means that you only win 1 auction if you won all auctions in your Contingency Bid."""
I noted that it looked a lot like Condorcet Voting, which is not something you'd learn (generally) in a strict CS/Math/Eng school. Not much of a point, but in general, beware of over-specialization. Specialization is for Insects.
--Robert
This is the first time Bill Gates is actually right. It is sad but true: Even in the last United Nations report the US is ranked and considered a developing country in terms of high-school and undergraduate education.
One things is for sure: when I have kids I will not force them to waste their lifes in public school but will get them some good tutors and send them straight to university.
I think US schools have been irreparably infected with the genra of scum that hold "making money" up as the paramount goal. The Teacher's Union has a deathgrip on public gradeschools to the extent it would have to be pounded to a bloody pulp before it gives up its prime spot on the government tit. I gave a "college try" at no less than 5 universities before giving up learning anything useful. In my experience and humble opinion, US schools are generally into making money and at best students are run through a rat-maze of marginally relevant crap in the name of "conditioning problem solving skills". Outside of a scientific BA or Masters from CMU, MIT, or another top-caliber US school, degrees on a resume mean little to me as an employer.
Probably the worst thing about High School is that it barely resembles the "real world" at all. Only the most bureaucratic corporations resort to standardized testing for employees. Only the most inane HR departments think a degree is worth more than years of work experience. Yet, our schools drive these terrible things right into the skulls of our kids.
Why are kids so stressed out about the SAT and going to college? Because we make them that way!
Quite honestly, telling an average kid that going to college will make them more successful is a lie. Pay-wise, they can easily do better with a two-year degree. Family-wise, they'll probably be better off not being so career driven, anyway, so that their own kids will be better adjusted about what success really is.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Not education. Education is a superset of training and is what school and university are for. Microsoft will be happy to sell you training.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Does everyone get their history from politicans these days??
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Careful for what you wish for, you might regret it at age 30. It might seem ideal to you, but those of us cross trained in the American system to write and think and who studied liberal arts electives might disagree. My colleagues in England (bless their heart) are brilliant minds in mathematics/computer science, but they can't write and they can't spell. Almost without exception. And they don't know as much about as other subject areas. Sure they could study other subjects on their own, but since they weren't introduced to it when they were young, they don't seem to do so.
In Canada, thanks to federal funding of post-secondary, you don't have to put up with that.
After high school, there are real technical schools, and real Universities. This allows most of the population to stream off. The rest end up working retail somewhere.
My undergraduate degree (4-year honours computer science) is going to cost me roughly 25-30,000$ Canadian in tuition. I don't have to take unrelated classes. I take classes that are important (for example, 6 credits from a class graded primarily on essay based writing to show that I have english proficiency, differential and integral calculus, statistics, and linear algebra), and a few electives (most likely chem, biochem, and bioinformatics) which can also be fun (drama). The rest is a choice between a more theory oriented approach to CS (the logic classes, the circuit design classes, the AI classes), or a more practical approach (the project classes, software engineering classes, web application classes).
I've read many comments where people in the US complain about the relevancy of the courses. I don't know if this is because the are the kind of people who think they know everything and disdain learning, or if this is because the US has a weak post-secondary education system.
Either way, considering the intense cost associate with the US system, you should probably consider being educated in Canada. You pay a bit more than a native Canadian, but you still pay less than in the US. During that time, you can get a citizenship and avoid being drafted into the draconian military industrial complex that rules the US, as well as see what life is like in a country that has no analog to the "department of homeland security."
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Despite the fact that current system does need a drastic change, saying "throw the old system out into trash violently" is way too harsh.
When you're dealing with something of this scale, you physically cannot just throw it away; there's too much bureaucracy and paperwork to be dealt with (unless you want to throw away the major part of current political system, but then again, you can't be serious)
Hi,
I'm rather troubled by that attitude here on Slashdot - there seem to be many many people who view a degree as pointless unless it fast tracks you to a job. There seem to be many people who view High School and University as solely vocational training, and judge the success or failure of those institutions solely by how successfuly they tain you to do a job.
When you're eighteen, if you are at all serious about living your own life, you need vocational training. Learning of learning's sake is great, but you won't have the spare time to learn in the rest of your life if you're struggling to make ends meet.
Universities used to be learning for learning sake when they were mostly populated by the children of the rich and rich, who did not expect to have to work for a living.
Bye,
Ori
-- Support a free market in the field of government
It's like getting in shape for the Special Olympics. Really, if you're dumb, the SAT should reflect that. You should accept your lot, and work at WalMart. If you "cheat" by cramming for the SAT (and similar tests), you're only setting yourself up for disappointment later, as you and those around you will realize that you're really dumb. So, bite the bullet, go into the SAT as you are, and take what comes.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
This from a man who has about as much personal experience with public education (attending or even coming within 50 yards of a school) as our beloved president (which is to say none). But, because he's managed the American dream (growing up rich and becoming even richer) we take every dumb thing that comes out of his mouth as pearls of wisdom. Maybe we should care more about what teachers think, what the principals think, or *gasp* what parents and students think, and less what the privileged elite think.
Pearls from swine.
I was never a good student. I hated school up until college. During junior high I would not to assignments on a regular basis, I was a standard rebel. I graduated junior high with a 68 average.
High school came along and it was more of the same. I failed chemistry, two math classes, four english classes, I was a wreck. I didn't even plan on going to college because the plan was that I would take over my fathers computer business after high school. I Didn't take the PSAT, I didn't take the SAT, and it was my senior year.
I found out about some local colleges that didn't require SAT scores for admission. I looked at some local technical schools. I then found out about the SUNY technical school chain, which opened my eyes. I could go away to an upstate college that didn't require SATs or anything. (I managed to get accepted based on my resume and references, not my high school transcript)
My senior year I worked quite alot to try and get my grade up. My average up until then was 74. My average in my senior year was 98. Even though I failed seven classes and never went to summer school I still graduated on time and I had a reduced schedule in my last year as well. Somehow in my last year I had three classes, I was back home by 10am every day.
I graduated college with a 3.5. I don't attribute my success in college to anything I ever learned in high school. High school was a complete waste for me. I could have skipped high school completely and dropped out as a freshman, got a GED and went off to college and probably would still be doing what I'm doing right now (which is owning/running a highly successful business)
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
Gates is actually right about our high-schools. They are a waste of time and money. In all of Europe kids learn in high-school what we learn here in college. The entire rest of the world is looking down on us Americans as being uneducated, paranoid, and unrefined and not able to get their act together to create a decent school system. The sad thing is that this is the truth. If our government would allocate only a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars that are spent on the defense budget for education we would have competitive education and would most likely not have to spend another couple hundreds of millions on building new prisons...
Gates is wrong in thinking that "high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college". Many if not most people do not have the intelligence to do real college level work. You can manufacture as many "college graduates" as you want by lowering standards enough. U.S. high school students trail their peers in most other countries on standardized tests, but they go to college at higher rates. That does not make sense.
1 .asp/ . The current system is designed more to benefit teachers than students, because the teachers are much more organized through teachers' unions than parents are. Peter Brimelow discusses this in his recent book "The Worm in the Apple".
Teens who are not academically inclined should be encouraged to go to work, as explained by Thomas Sowell at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell05220
[Bill Gates] By obsolete, I mean our high schools _ even when they're working as designed _ cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.
High schools are just a place where students spend many hours with teachers, have their homework and independent study supervised and reviewed, and get evaluated. That's not "obsolete", it simply is the way education works. How you fill those hours, and with what material, is what decides what people eventually know and the skills they get.
The fact that you can't teach students "what they need to know" has nothing to do with the format, it has to do with the amount of knowledge and the limited amount of time. That's why good schools emphasize preparing students for life-long learning, rather than trying to cram every bit of information into their students' heads.
Curriculums need to be redesigned, class sizes reduced, and teachers need to get paid better. But those are incremental improvements, they don't change the fact that it is a good idea to have students go to a school every day and interact with each other and teachers in a structured and planned format.
Gates's attitude towards high school is the same as towards Windows and complex systems in general: make uninformed pronouncements and rush a half-baked solution out into the real world. Twenty years later, after patching up all the problems, he ends up with something that is more or less like the thing he didn't understand in the first place.
Bill: please stop trying to design complex systems or mess with things you don't understand. It worked badly enough for Windows; let's not repeat those mistakes with things that really matter, like education.
I dont think a college dropout is qualified to analyze the US high school system.
While I applaud the B&MG Foundation for putting at least some of their money where Bill's mouth is, I have to say that I think he's missing the point here.
Secondary education should not, as Mr. Gates believes, "be redesigned to prepare every student for college." What we need is high schools that prepare every student for *life*. There was a time when high schools in the US did exactly this.
Looking back at my own experience, having graduated from the esteemed Peter Stuyvesant High School (from the old building, and before they redesigned the SAT's, back when it was still the *Westinghouse* Science Talent Search, etc, etc), I can say that it was a great shock to me to find myself, in college, in what I can only describe as remedial required courses with students who clearly should not ever have been awarded a high school diploma, let alone have been admitted to university.
Having said that, if we really want to advance the state of education in this country, it will require a massive commitment of public money, as well as a dramatic shift in the way we view both parental and community responsibilites.
Two things to keep in mind:
1. There are no bad students, there are only bad teachers.
2. Education begins in the home.
Post-secondary education should not be a foregone conclusion. We need to strengthen the requirements for the satisfactory completion of secondary education. High school graduates in the future need to have an equivalent education to today's liberal arts bachelor's recipient's.
Of course, getting there is going to require universal day care and preschool, all-year elementary and secondary school schedules, and a complete re-think of the way we provide for family support in our economic sector. By this I mean things like fully-paid maternity and paternity leave, realistic and generous vacation allotments, and universal health care coverage.
I also believe that post-secondary education should be free for all those who demonstrate an appropriate level of aptitude. By supplying this level of support for post-secondary education, we can help ensure that all those who have the ability are able to achieve their rightful place in a productive economy, but this also has to be backed up by an education system that provides those of average and below average aptitude a complete education that culminates at the secondary level.
maybe they learn there is more than M$ which is realy bad ...
my 2 cent
I guess that depends on what you think the goal of an education system should be. Is it about more than turning everyone into a productive worker? I think so.
I live in the UK, so my education was fairly general in secondary school (aged 11-16), more specialised in the sixth form (16-18) and then entirely specialised at university (18-21 in my case).
During the secondary stage, I studied not only the fields of maths and science in which I'd later choose to specialise, but also history, English, modern languages, Latin (actually one of the most useful classes I took, notwithstanding the subject matter being "a little outdated"), art, craft, music, and more. This gave me a level of general background knowledge about the world, and an appreciation of what my peers were studying later on. I've found speaking several languages to at least a basic conversational level useful on any number of occasions since, so it's hardly redundant knowledge, either.
During the sixth form, I started focussing on maths, physics and chemistry. This level is the hardest to categorise in the UK; much of the material is beyond what an everyday person would need to know of, say, maths, and the focus is more on preparation for studying a related degree than anything else. It's interesting in its own right as well, of course, even if I never use the knowledge of chemistry I gained there in a job.
Once I got to university, I specialised in maths, and later CS. This was obviously very academic, yet is directly relevant to my chosen profession. Even then, though, it's important to separate this academic training from vocational training. A university course shouldn't be teaching specific tools and today's buzzword techniques, it should be teaching (a) the general knowledge needed to appreciate those tools and techniques, and (b) how to study independently, so you can learn the details of specific areas by yourself later.
It's often said around here that a good programmer can learn a new programming language in a few days, and there's at least an element of truth in that. More importantly, in ten years' time, someone with a good background in the theory and the drive and ability to study independently will still be keeping up with new tools and new buzzwords, while the Java McDegree holders will be wondering what this new language is for, and waiting to be spoon fed over-priced training materials by the commercial entities behind it.
Given what the IT industry has been doing to CS courses in recent years, essentially reducing them to vocational qualifications in buzzword subjects, they are clearly interested in propagating the use of newbie programmers at cheap rates for a few years, then trading them in (firing them) when they get too expense and hiring more cheap newbies instead. From a business perspective, this makes for a pretty good "software construction line", but you're losing the essential higher level of quality, both by neglecting proper training and by giving up your more experienced assets. Ultimately, that sort of behaviour leads to inefficient development processes (one skilled and experienced developer can easily be more productive than three newbies who each cost a quarter as much) and loss of quality (witness the declining performance and security of many modern software projects for obvious examples).
So thanks Bill, but I'd rather you didn't try to convert the rest of secondary education into vocational training from age 10. The education system is there to develop people as human beings and cultivate their skills and interests. There will be plenty of time to learn job skills on the job; save the education system for more important things.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Here is a blog article that seems to agree, but probably not in the same way.
I am scared that universities will get addicted to this easy and profitable way of doing business and soon it will be the norm, even though it cheats students.
Probably the best way to avoid this outcome is to create elite vocational schools to siphon off the people who don't want to be in university in the first place, and keep them from tearing it down or watering it down.
In the end I'm afraid the only way to get an old style, hands on university education will be to pay $300,000 a year to Princeton. The rest of us will pay $5000 to sit in front of a computer in our mom's basement.
What happened to all of George W. Bush's promises he made during election time about a several fold increase of our education budget? Except his controversial "no child left behind" plans none of his promises have materialized. Looks like we have been fooled in terms of education as well.
I seem to remember that Bill Gates' highest degree is a high school diploma. He seems to be doing pretty well.
I can be serious. This country was created in an act of revolution and most of our greatest leaps of progress were born in times of great upheaval. All of our greatest moments have been defined by protest, revolutionary war or unsettlingly rapid technoligical change.
When we need to refine existing processes or systems, then we need to be slow and calculated and careful. But we don't have a viable alternative to our existing system. We don't have a baseline to work from when trying to refine things.
We need to find a new idea, a new system. When we need to replace existing systems, we need to do so with reckless abandon. Progress is born of conflict. Progress arises out of chaos. No progress is possible in the current system of education precisely because it is so closely tied to our system of government and to beauracratic organizations like the NEA.
Cut those ties. Cut the umbilical cord. And the system will have to grow and change to survive. It sounds harsh because it is. It sounds dangerous because it is. It sounds a little nuts and irrational because it is.
It's also exactly what we need.
"A reasonable man adapts himself to suit his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw
What do we learn in high school, from MTV, or from VH1? One day within this decade we will wake up and face the grim reality that we are in the bottom 20 nations of the world in terms of high school education. Countries like Uganda and Ghana are far ahead and China will rule the world.
Are different. I've seen it through all my friends, and most people who are +/- 5 years of my age (22). The fact is, we love learning. But we love learning about different things, things we like, stupid things.. Sometimes I sit around and read about something stupid (N. Korea one day) for a solid 8 hours for no reason at all. University's environment, and i hear this over and over, is just stifling to creativity. You have to do what they say, you have to do a crapload of work in a very specific area (your major), and you just don't have time to sit in a library or on the internet and learn about random things.
So why do we rush through uni just for a degree? To get a decent paying job that gives us enough free time to do what we want. That's why university sucks, that's why we hate it but need it, that's why everyone bad mouths it. I realize i made some generalizations, so forgive me, i'm just going by what i've seen.
I couldn't agree more! My wife is a HS english teacher, and even she says the system needs a complete redesign. We are not talking about a refactoring here, but a complete change. We do not give kids the credit and challenges they deserve. The big obstacles are, however, culture, parents, and social economic issues. If mom and dad don't value an education, the kids wont either. If we don't expect more of our kids, they wont expect more of themselves. Additionally, teaching methods are very outdated. There hasn't been significant change and improvement in teaching methods for 50 years. It is the same "lather, rinse, repeat" system. We teach kids to memorize, not learn. We must teach kids how to learn, not be taught.
My
Linus Torvalds Proclaims MS OSes Obsolete He says 'Microsoft's operating systems are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that they're broken, flawed or buggy, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean their operating systems even when they're working as designed cannot perform all all the tasks they need to perform today.'"
As I totally agree on all accounts with Bill Gates on how U.S. high schools today are struggling to teach well, high school isn't all about academics. High school is just as much about learning social skills as learning calculus or physics. Why do you think that there are so many school dances and pep assemblies? Anybody can go online and learn C++, or the concepts of thermodynamics, but only a school can offer a place for students to make friends and participate in the numerous sports and clubs. If students came out of high school with a great education and no social abilities, the standard would raise (and as someone mentioned above) people would need a college degree to manage a restaurant, instead of having people who are content to have a strong social life instead of a great career. Humans are inherently social creatures, some more than others, and the schools see this. They recognize that most students aren't going to be able to study four hours a night to get that quality education Bill Gates foresees. Bill Gates, much like most of the /. audience, probably went through high school seeing the academic inadequacies not realizing that most of the high school learning experience is in the after school activities and between classes.
"For Great Justice."
...a Microsoft High School is being built in Philadelphia. (Here's your bugmenot credentials, if you need them.)
I look forward to the first time the place is brought to its knees by malware and they have to send the kids home like it was a snow day.
Bill, before offering half baked solutions to the "education problem" try to think of one that takes all of these people into consideration.
But you can't have one school that works for everyone. You'd have to have two different kinds of high schools - a vocational one and a prep school. Other countries do this all the time, maybe the U.S. should give it a try.
Bring out the statistics to scare everyone, but who cares if your idea doesn't actually address them...
"Of every 100 ninth-graders, only 68 graduate high school on time"
"Summit leaders have an ambitious agenda for every state: to raise the requirements of a high school diploma, improve information sharing between high schools and universities, and align graduation standards with the expectations of colleges and employers."
How, exactly, does making High School harder increase the percentage of students who will graduate from HS?
Isn't this sort of like declaring that a diet high in fat will kill you, and that's why you should only eat new SUPER BEEF that has twice the vitamins of regular beef (but has a little more fat, too)? Maybe it's not exactly the same thing, but flawed in a similar fashion.
I agree that HS in the US is far from perfect, but just making it harder (or, more specifically, more geared toward preparing students for college and work) isn't going to do anything about the number of kids who don't graduate in the first place. Perhaps this isn't really their plan, but it's the only solution mentioned in the article.
The point is why do they need to use unrelated statistics as scare tactics to get their point across, if there's a real problem and they have a real solution? I think the answer is that there is a real problem, but they don't have a real solution... If you want to better prepare our kids for life, maybe you should pay some attention to the 32% who never graduate from High School, instead of just increasing the percentage of students who won't even graduate HS in order to make the remaining few who do make it through to college more prepared for higher education. Maybe I'm off base here, but I see a big hole in this plan. Am I wrong?
"For a University that has set their minimum requirement at 1100 (for example), there will be a fine print that reads, "or 1030 for tests prior to 1994.""
That's interesting. As someone who graduated in the 70's, I took the SAT's and scored about 1225...which was 3rd highest in the school. The highest was 1275, and the girl was really really smart. The average kids were getting 900-1000.
Today, I see kids that I consider pretty average getting 1300-1400.
I'd put it down to better test preparation, but I never really thought too hard about it.
Now the funny part is despite all that, despite a complete lack of "computer education" in high school, I don't seem to have a problem with new technologies.
Of course, back in my day, about 1/2 the kids had what we called "vo-tech". Unless you really were college material (less than 30% of the class), you were pushed towards vo-tech or business.
Today, everybody is college material? And we wonder why college tuition is increasing? Too much demand from the looks of it.
I don't agree with much of what he has done with Microsoft, but Bill Gates is absolutely correct on this assessment. The American High School and the entire Educational system of America is severly broken. There is no doubt to this in my mind as I watch my children grow up today.
They are learning more about conflict resolution and other essentially socialistic concerns than they are basic math, science, english skills. They can't solve problems. They don't know science. Yet they are 4.0 students in one of the better schools in the area.
We have before us a generation of sissies and sheep.
How did we get here? This is the question that must be understood in order to fix it.
I suspect that much of this is the results of liberal/socialist movements to include everyone, including the No Child Left Behind mantra of Bush. Darwin would disagree with this statement and tell you that it's very likely that children will be left behind and it's up to the children and the parents to make sure they do their very best to ensure that their children are not left behind.
Unfortunately, since everyone is so bent on double income lifestyles, we have ignored the most important job for the future. Who is raising the children? The teachers or the parents? The teachers do not have the level of interest in the children that the parents do and are have their hands too tied down with legal concerns and paperwork.
Is it becomming difficult to allow the teachers simply fail children who do not perform adequately? Is this the future of our No Child Left Behind tempered by the educational systems costs upon the teachers when they do fail children in terms of hearings, paperwork, and even lawsuits?
Education is the single most important investment we can make in the United States today. If we fail to regain the technological edge that carried us through the years of the cold war, then we must recognize that this nation is no longer capable of being a world leader. Historically, having a big army doesn't make you a world leader for very long. The United States of America is facing a turning a point where our lack of educational rigor and structure that carried us to the point where we where in the 1980's and 1990's is pushing us behind the leading edge of science, technology, and hence business, economy, and overall position in the world.
I lurned lots in hi skuwl
I think it interesting that such support is comming from Bill Gates as it has been made clear that he built his business on the idea of making people need you as in selling them a fish, rather than teaching them to fish.
There is what I call the manifestation of the user frustration function in MS software. The result of the application of such selling fish mindset.
Quantity is the MS product target, not quality.
You can make the installation and activation of a light and heat emitting device so complicated that it takes specialized hired help to use it, or you can buy an inexpensive light bulb, screw it in yourself and flip the wall mounted light switch.
Just how much (quantity) of education do you suppose Bill is refering to? and What quality is dismissed by he?
maybe I should have to read everything Bill Gates ever said to make a fair judgement on this? Or maybe I can just rely on my real life experience with MS products and lack of competition (over the last decade or so) as to what to expect from he.
Hmmm, isn't he a college dropout?
Doesn't take much education to learn to lie to people. Honesty is a great deal harder.
Hmmm, maybe the world economy will bloom if everyone just learns to lie and apply it. If MS is any example...
It only makes sense, we work in Microsft Office, our kids should go to Microsoft School. Don't you wish Clippy could have been your PE teacher?
- rock bands (as fans or players)
- star trek conventions
- jobs in the work force
- groups for exploring sex or intoxicants
- jail time
- church time (including alternate faiths)
- education
- political groups
I agree that high schools could be improved, but they serve an important function beyond just education. A high school is a controlled community where people can constructively and carefully transition to new ways of thinking during a time of life they are adjusting to new ways of living.High school changes as kids get more freedom. There was, for example, far more decadence in my sophomore year when students started getting driver's licenses and could really come out from their parents wing. Some people see the horrible changes of docile, faithful, maleable eighth graders and blame high school for changing them into decadent, questioning, unfulfilled seniors with dangerous disrespect for their parents. That's an almost unavoidable change that happens; I wouldn't deny the good things kids learn in high school because of this fear of growing up.
This isn't a new idea though. Down in the south, I've heard these suggestions to change, limit, or eliminate high school for years in various forms. This has had some success. Majority vote deciding to include Creationism. Home schooling to completely withdraw their children. Suggestions that job corps completely replace school sports. etc. Usually, these are people who see the prepubescent kid as having a state of mind that's good for their purposes:
- Lengthening vacation for the farmer's cheap workforce
- Poor abstract thinking without algebra and such
- Less exposure to foreign communities (and religion)
- Perception that the scientific method triggers religious doubt
These are crap ideas; these changes will happen as the horomones increase and freedom expands. Just because you want your factory or superstore to be full of non-union, hard-working, ignorant, monkeys doesn't mean that it's in the best interest of the kids or the community. If anything, taking away sports, homework, and the things that completely fill a high school student's life beyond the school day will only make things more decadent, more free, and more undesirable.Just so I won't be accused of wandering to far atopic of the connection with Bill Gates, let me say that this may or may not be true, but I can see his taking this position either way. He may want good education for kids in the same way he (and Melinda) had when they were growing up (in which case this would be false). On the other hand, a good education does go against the non-programmer mentality of the eighth grade students who haven't really developed abstract thought. All this free education on algebra, scientific methodology, the ideas of standing on the shoulder's of giants, and the so forth probably does promote the open source community, the virus writer community, and the intellectual property piracy community moreso than it does the docile, licensed, Windows community. I can really see Bill backing either side of this debate without too much trouble.
I think the whole American school system needs to be redesigned. I always went from great schools that challenged me to lesser schools where I stagnated, and then played catchup at the school. I learned to start off below the curve and ending up in front. Luckily that helped me get into an excellent university even though my highschool was lacking. A lot of my years in school was rehashing earlier classes, such as in junior high we learned nothing as their only goal was to keep us away from gangs. I went to an excellent elementary school, and learned nothing after 5th grade until 9th.
To improve schools, the tag line is "more math/science". Great, most schools do a poor job of this, but its not the answer. My view is that pre-college should be focused on character development, exposure to many fields, and a base-line education (history/english/math/science).
In my model, character development would be to help instil universally accepted morals (e.g. integrity) and put them in situations that are challenging and force personal growth. They should also be exposed to a wide range of topics, so that they can see how base education is important and learn what they want to do. For example, in my highschool algebra class the girls thought it was useless - just imagine if they got to calculus? By also teaching finances/economics, they'll get better at math, learn the value of money, and hopefully learn how to handle it in the future (e.g. invest). Cross-training them will let them see the big picture, rather then thinking math/science are only important in a narrow field.
After highschool, universities should be extremely challenging and largely focused on that major. Most colleges are degree mills to get workers out there - great for manufactering but not for "knowledge workers". The latter need to learn how to learn, not just be trained in a specific task.
I guess to sum it up, I don't think we can compete even if every American had a PhD in math or science. We need to be better at everything to be more productive - the hard and soft skills.
I bet you're just bitter because you are ugly and boring.
So many of the courses required of freshmen are fundamental things a student should have learned in high school or even well before that. If a student actually needs one of those freshmen courses then they have no business being in college.
you'll see college become as pointless and as irrelevant to success as high school, because more people will go to college without any reason better than "I need a degree...
If all Americans from 15 to 18 have to go some place, that place will become highschool.
If it's not a proof-reading problem, and you just didn't learn how to use a hyphen, let me help:
The "top students" are held back by a school system designed to create factory workers, a system that doesn't foster creativity.All these absurd feel good plans about improving the performance at the bottom seem to be implemented by holding back the top. Our TOP STUDENTS need to be supported. The future Researchers, Engineers, and Captains of Industry are taken from the people that excel in various areas, those people need to be enabled to achieve, not thrown into an environment where they tend to engage in self destructive behavior that is counter productivity.
"[A] system that doesn't foster creativity" is better as an aside (or parenthetical) rather than a subordinate clause. Additionally, quotation marks shouldn't be used for emphasis (your Bedford, Turabian, or Chicago all would have told you this). Finally, I've also included examples of hyphenation, etc., throughout your original post. I guess I'll have to post this anonymously because everyone hates the grammar police (all while they are yelling about how much our school system sucks; Ironic), however, I'll check back to see if you have any further questions or comments.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
IF you want to teach someone, show them why they should learn the material. I never found any value in the school system so I never bothered to study... hence the main reason I'm unemployed. Anyway, for subjects like mathematics you could show the student something (e.g. source code) that might incorporate the topic.
You could say the John Dewey style of education would be a good idea to try. If my memory is correct, Noam Chomsky went through an early school system based on the Dewey ideas an he turned out intelligent - albeit a little radical, but still intelligent.
Also you could say Mortimer J. Adler's system "The Paideia Program". Or the Jacques Barzun... oh hell there are a lot of hypothesis on the education system. People learn in different styles.
Those are the classes that were required as a high school student in Idaho. Math, Biology, History, Two years of German, French or Spanish (second year optional). I took 2 years for Mechanical and Architectual drawing. Great stuff. They should have required Trig but didn't. But we had the humanities and the sciences all the way through 2nd year Calc and phyics, if you wanted it.
We are taught enough basic math to do our taxes and pay our bills. A free thinker is dangerous to both the govenment and his employers, regardless of the "American way". "Pay your taxes, and be a cow to our whip", is what they are really telling us.
Henry Ford was very active in setting up schools to get more educated factory workers. And I think his (and others) real motive (even if he didn't realize it) has shown through to today.
Gene Amdahl's dad (Gene should need no introduction for the Slashdot crowd) was a rancher in South Dakota who didn't make it to high school, yet alone college. But he encouraged his son to do a liberal arts degree in college, because he felt the purpose of education was to "find your place in the world", not to be an intellectual supermarket where you pick up technical skills and check them out on graduation day.
See this short bio for more details.
If we change the high school and college experience, I think we have to orient it back towards self-discovery and away from skill accumulation -- once you know who you are and where you want to be in the world, you can find a way to gear up to make it happen. But if you are drifting through life, all of the skills in the world won't help much.
After taco's previous post, I don't know what to believe. Not that I don't somewhat agree if it is real, but taco boy should be banned for life after calling wolf like that.
My lame blog.
Microsoft today announced that it is beginning development on a new suite of educational applications to be known as MSHighSchool 2.0.
Our high schools are obsolete because they are based on a system that tells children by 3rd grade whether they are on the "College Track" or on some other track. We have had equality within education system, but if we are going to survive we need to have equity. Everyone needs to be have a standard to get to and strive toward. Now, the fact that our high school system is predicated on the idea of a vocational system that was created in 1917 and has changed very little, I would say that it is about time for change.
Think about this: How much do any of you remember from high school?
How much do you actually use from high school?
We as an educational system is looking for a place to go. Right now we are graduating children from high school and giving them a diploma, but what does it mean? We need to look at the quality of education that children need.
Now look at this, we need to have equity in what is taught, we need to put out quality students, and make sure that everyone learns. Is this all possible within our current equcational system? Well since we have had the same educational system for the past 90 years and we haven't had these things happen, then I'd say this is a resounding NO. The only way this will happen is to completely change it. So even though I hate to say it, Mr. Gates is right on this topic.
Who knew? Bill gates has a brain.
42
I am an american but grew up in Europe. The educational system I was in is (or was at least) very specialized.
Despite a number of flaws, it worked very well, because the people who wanted to study hard were tracked into challenging, competitive/selective, and demanding curicula. We had mostly technical classes (lots of math, physics, chemistry, engineering), but also some foreign languages, history, geography. litterature.
The most important aspect of my section was that everyone took it vey seriously (students, professors), and while we had fun too, we worked really hard. I guess the main point is that because it was competitive/selective, we *wanted* to be there, those that didn't... left. Having gone on to get a PhD in Physics and an MS in CS (uiuc.edu), I can still honestly say that I worked harder in HS than at any other time in my life... and loved it. We viewed ourselves as professionals and for the most part enjoyed the experience (math/science really can be lots of fun!).
This is probably not for everyone. Some people, for a variety of reasons, are uninterested (or unable) to pursue that kind of education (by which I mean serious, intense and academic, not only scientific), which is fine. Those people should be provided useful ways to pursue some other kind of education, be it a "less intense/focused" track or a "tradesman" track. We need poets and airplane mechanics too. Those are no less valid choices or careers.
My best friend was one such person who, while not in the least bit dumb, was not interested in lots of math/physics. He chose to go into a metallurgy track, and came out at 18 being a highly-skilled metallurgist/machinist. His was hardly a wasted HS experience, quite the opposite. He knew things about metal and could do things with it that were quite amazing. He knew substantially more about metals than I did as a "science/engineering" student.
If I recall correctly, in both the US and there, about 50% of students actually graduate with an "academic" degree. In the US though, that degree represents a lot less actual usable knowledge, and the other 50% are simply left to twist in the wind. Think about the cost of discarding (or under-utilizing) the potential of half of your population.
So I guess my point is that tracking is good, if done right:
1) Give some general-ed classes to everyone, but allow them to pursue their interests.
2) Make it as demanding/competitive as possible,
3) Don't toss out people who don't have an interest in purely academic pursuits, or can't make it there, they deserve a good education also.
Aside from math, I don't think there was a single worthwhile class in all of my high school history.
Hell, even the computer classes were pointless BS that had you doing some utterly ridiculous and meaningless task with word. "Copy and paste a picture into here, right align this paragraph, left align that."
The programming classes they had were even pointless. Yeah, they taught you the bare bones of syntax, but you never actually made anything useful. Stuff like finding solutions to quadratic equations.. something you can do by hand quicker than it takes to write a fuckin program to do it all.
High school has the wrong idea. What they need are more "real life" courses... things you have to deal with when you get into the real world: buying a car/house, doing taxes, the latest technology (and by latest, I don't mean teaching kids to program on QBasic on some 10 year old mac).
College is the same way... I'm majoring in CIS and I'm having to take boatloads of unnecessary courses (like the requirements in "Humanities" or "History").
When you choose a path for your career, it should be sometime before you graduate. The schools should shape your education to reflect on your career path.
They simply try to hard to cram all angles in, when really a very small portion of them are needed or beneficial. It's nice to know history and all, but I really don't need to waste a semester on that when I could be learning something I can actually apply to my career.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
The world's richest college dropout complains that High Schools are poor. He went to private schools thirty years ago that his lawyer father paid for. He will be sending his kids to private schools.
What could be done if coporations like Microsoft payed their fair share of taxes? What could be done if they took their power as taxpayers to the school boards saying they are failing? What if Microsoft made it known that they will not invest in a community because of poor schools?
Instead they get tax breaks that shift taxes onto others. They send their kids to private schools. They only look at what will Bill his next billion and let the communities they are in go to hell. They will buy their way out, screw the rest of you.
Ok, I haven't even read the other sibling posts, but I don't think I'll find one that I agree with more, or that is more personally relevant.
In high school I read lots of science and technical books and whatnot- it was obviously what I was good at.
I did ok in AP courses, and used them to place out of as many "fluff" courses in college as possible.
I ended up with a masters in EE, the whole time minimizng the amount of time spent toward courses that didn't count toward my major. There were exceptions, and I enjoyed the occasional easy course / course that taught about topics utterly unrelated to any job I might be likely to end up with. But overall, I was very focussed on getting out with degrees that mattered.
Getting out of college, I got a job as a software engineer about two years ago. Now, I spent my leisure time reading about things that are not so narrow. Now that I have a car and a house (or rather, am borrowing said items from a bank that I am paying money to each month), I feel comfortable reading philosophy, mythology, and less focussed science texts.
I don't have a problem with being required to take a few noncore classes. I *do* have a problem with the inherent assumption that if the university didn't tell me to read a varied menu, I wouldn't- ever. I don't have the time and money to be the leisured intellectual, but I'm a lot closer now than when I was looking at prices for houses and realizing that without a *good* job fast, I'd be living in a hole- or worse, with my parents.
It would be nice if it were possible to major in art, or history, or *any* of those "soft" majors and not have to be immediately faced with "you may either know about your major, or you may live a normal life". It would be nice, basically, if we didn't have to work so hard, especially with our youth. There were two types of people who were enjoying their youth: the types who couldn't compete and knew it, and the types who didn't need to compete, and knew it (above average family finances would provide enough of a cushion for them). This is a lot of the people, mind you.
Most of my friends are still living with their parents, or they and their SOs have purchesed a place together (the necessity of a two income family is kinda scary).
Do we really have to work that hard? Is there really not enough to go around?
Just an example...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
work with their hands. For whatever reason, book learning and sitting in a cube 8 hours a day doesn't appeal as much to them as blacksmithing, wrenching or plumbing.
Whatever happened to learning for learning's sake?
There is no such thing as learning for learning's sake. Every bit of education is merely a means to an end. Eduction is never the end.
Don't believe it? Answer the question: what is the use of learning merely for learning's sake?
A: Because you'll be an educated person!
Q: So what? What does that get me?
A: You'll get to be in society's elite!
Q: So then learning is a means to an end -- a means to get into a higher class in society?
A: No, that's not it! Learning is good in and of itself!
Q: Why?
A: You'll have a greater understanding of the world!
Q: And what does that get me?
A: You'll be able to talk more authoritively on subjects of science, history, and politics!
Q: So then learning is a means to an end -- a means to get into a higher class in society? Being able to "talk with more authority" merely means that I'll be able to hold my own in "higher" conversations with "more important" people, right?
A: No, that's not it! Learning is good in and of itself!
Q: Why?
A: Sinks to invective, talks about me being "anti-education."
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Paul03244's Recent Submissions
Title Datestamp
Gates Urges Governors to Improve High Schools Sunday February 27, @01:49AM Rejected
Only I also submitted more analysis & links to a more substantive NY Times article, the National Governors Association website, and the text of Gates NGA speech
Whats important is to have a school system where you learn to learn. The mission for a school should be to teach kids some general knowledge of how stuff works, and then give them the tools they need to apply to various problems. If you havent learned how to learn by the time your at university you have a problem.
Trivia is largely unnecessary today - ofcourse you need to know when the Berlin wall fell, but more importantly you need to know why it was there, and what it meant when it fell. You may not need to know the exact year Christopher Columbus discovered America, but know what it meant when he did.
Having studied in Denmark most of my life this is what i learned in our high school (theres only one, public) - ofcourse i had math, biology, chemistry and the other basic things needed to pursue university, but more importantly we focussed on how to to view things analytically, and understand what it means. The exams are not based on multiple choices anywhere, for example "The Large" history assignment is a final report you have to write, and are then orally examed in. You could write about the political climate in Europe after WW2 for example, theres alot of material to read there, knowing how to organise it and draw conclusions from it is critical.
A school system like the German one, where you are put into boxes at an early age, was abandoned in Denmark long time ago, because it doesent work, try asking a 14 year old kid what he wants to do, specialise in this or that? He will look puzzled, and his answer will probably rely solely on what his parents want him to do, rather than what wants to do. I enjoyed my time in high school, and what i learned has really helped me learn how to study at a university.
Where your brother is sent in the world affects you. If you lost your job you might feel the effects.
(More on topic) Knowing anything about geography is just one of those little things that defines character I guess. Maybe it takes a bit of a better man to know about things that don't affect him directly.
DON'T go to college. Get a job and save money. Travel for a year or two. Get to know people. Listen to the elderly. Volunteer somewhere. Make a library a second home. Fix your car yourself. Cook your food yourself. Find someone to love.
That's how you learn anything of value.
When you're ready for a new job, then you can go to college.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Of course, he graduated from high school also.
But, seriously, to lump all high schools as failed is just like, say, lumping all Microsoft software as insecure, bloated, unstable, etc, etc. Truth is not an average or aggregate value. Some Microsoft products are good (coming from a Mac and Linux user). Some high schools are good.
Like Mr. Gates, I didn't go to some 5000 student county high school. I still remember some of my education and, because of that education and AP testing, I was able to graduate from college in three years - a substantial savings of money. Mr. Gates also did well with his high school education.
Gates' proposals are not very specific and, at least in the article, are a rehash of old ideas (smaller class size, emphasis of the "basics" - whatever those are). Perhaps we need to go to a British system (with placement exams to determine whether you go to "public" (=private) high level schools or to vocational school. I am actually in favor of resegregating high school by sex - separate schools for men and women. My high school admitted women the year I was in 4th form (=10th grade) and I think it changed the whole school for the worse.
As a high school student myself, I notice that most of my classmates are in school only expecting to one day get a job thanks to this "education". Many of their parents no longer tell them to go to school and learn to gain knowledge, but they more commonly they tell them "get your education so you can get a good job." Many teachers also encourage students to "see" that education is important, however their reasoning of why it's important is to get a well payed job. I think that this is due to the way our society is, money-centered.
However, those who actually seek knowledge, although they can learn much from a teacher, usually end up studying what they care to learn about, on their own. Although learning from a professor is probably the easiest way, there are many resources that we can use to study on our own just as well.
Although I've encountered many teachers who no longer care about what education should be, there are teachers who still see educations as something other than a way of getting a job. However, I noticed that even these teachers limit themselves to teaching only what is within the curriculum. Approaching these teachers, I've learned that you can actually have very interesting conversations and learn more than the bullshit that is taught in class. My question is: why don't these teachers share the same information with the whole class?(i'm sure the discussion I had with the teacher would interest the whole class at least as much, if not more, than the crap in the curriculum)
(this is just my share, based on my own experience)
Too many parents are so convinced that little Billy or Sally are exceptional, they'll do absolutely anything to make sure the kids keep moving on in school, regardless of whether or not they actually learned what they were supposed to learn. Parents are absolutely mortified that Billy might get left back that they'll do anything to get him passed, even if it means he comes out of high school a retard.
It happened to me once. I was going to fail second grade, so my parents pulled me and my sister from the local public school and put us in private school. I knew I was screwing up in class, but I didn't know I was going to be held back until many years later (I just though they were sending me to a Catholic school because we were a Catholic family). In retrospect, I should have been held back; I deserved to be (and that's not just Catholic guilt talking...well, okay, maybe a little).
In a survey taken last year called the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the study found that American 8th graders ranked nineteenth in math and science internationally. The survey didn't even include China or India (who are churning out mathematicians and scientists at a frightening rate), so I think I'm pretty safe in saying that Americans really ranked twenty-first. We came in just after Latvia, for goodness' sake!
Parents think they know how well their kids learn better than the teachers who actually do the teaching. They see advancement as the goal, not learning.
The best thing we can do is to free teachers to do the teaching and grading.
One of the reasons schools suck is that they're living on shoestring budgets. What states ought to do is get big endowments from big companies, with a strict and public set of rules on how closely the schools can be tied in. (I don't want to see kids going to Coca-Cola High or Anusol Middle School, but a plaque or something would be fine.) Endowments from companies pays off, because the endowed schools churn out kids who are smarter; that, in turn, means smarter people entering the workforce after college.
I also think that we ought to at least discuss some of the more radical proposals, like the Republicans' 1996 idea of eliminating the Department of Education. I do think that states, counties and cities ought to have far more control over what their kids are taught, and the Department of Education as it exists is a huge and useless bureaucracy.
Um... Bill... I know you're a smart guy and all, but what you're talking about is the function of college, not high school. Nice try though.
Of course, he graduated from high school also.
But, seriously, to lump all high schools as failed is just like, say, lumping all Microsoft software as insecure, bloated, unstable, etc, etc. Truth is not an average or aggregate value. Some Microsoft products are good (coming from a Mac and Linux user). Some high schools are good.
Like Mr. Gates, I didn't go to some 5000 student county high school. I still remember some of my education and, because of that education and AP testing, I was able to graduate from college in three years - a substantial savings of money. Mr. Gates also did well with his high school education.
Gates' proposals are not very specific and, at least in the article, are a rehash of old ideas (smaller class size, emphasis of the "basics" - whatever those are). Perhaps we need to go to a British system (with placement exams to determine whether you go to "public" (=private) high level schools or to vocational school. I am actually in favor of resegregating high school by sex - separate schools for men and women. My high school admitted women the year I was in 4th form (=10th grade) and I think it changed the whole school for the worse.
Many posters here comment of the content of high school. Most teenagers don't have a clue what they like or have an aptitude for. It's very important to expose them to a wide variety of information and academic disciplines. Specialization can come later.
Doh! I hit Enter and sent this anonymously by accident. Allow me to sum up.
Bill Gates is absolutely right; schools in America are thoroughly broken. Our kids are getting dumber every year. Meddling parents, an advancement-only society, overtesting and reduced arts programming are combining to ensure that our kids learn less and less every year.
My HS (in Calgary,Alberta,Canada) is really pushing for students to enter the Registered Apprenticeship Program. You either get to go to your job half the day, for the entire school year, or to go fulltime for half of the year. This is because the Oil Sands project needs more workers. Now, I want to be a pilot. I intend on taking the (very well-respected) diploma program from the local college, and I'm already working toward my Private Pilot's License. Now, do you think I could receive a comparable offer to go through flight training? If I got 230 hours of flight time, I could be an employed commercial pilot by the end of my first year. Clearly, the point of high schools is not to prepare students for the real world, or to help them get a job. It is to help the rest of the province/society by pumping out whatever it is that they need.
I think that social systems like software are best improved incrimentally and by as little as possible in order to make the system work.
Our public school system is obsolete and dates from a time when we were an industrial economy. In this environment, a high-school education was important, but the difference between an indistrial labor and a higher-paying management job was usually a matter of education. In this context things like encouraging high-school graduation and affirmative action made a lot of sense.
However, our economy no longer makes a division between industrial labor and management based on a level of education (there are a few industries which are exceptions). And one cannot earn a livable wage on a high-school diploma. The industrial jobs have largely left the country and we have low-paying menial service jobs and high paying information jobs (including management). In order to give everyone a chance at escaping poverty, we need to make sure that everyone has full access to a college education.
So rather than trying to redesign our high-school system, lets focus on making our college system more accessible to those of limited means. We cannot create a public school system which will teach people enough to really be able to do well in todays world by the time they are 18. We need to push that back to 22 and the BA/BS. The vision needs to be one where every American can afford a debt-free BA or BS.
Our education system must produce thoughtful and contemplative adults. I think there are a lot of people that just want universities to crank out trained worker bees at age 22.
I completely agree with you. I always tell people that it is better to get a degree in a field you love than study what you think might make you money. In the end, the former approach will give you many more skills which will in the end make you more successful even if HR departments are clueless (which they often are when you don't have a degree in the field they want you to have).
The economy has changed. We are now largely a knowledge and service-based economy with manufacturing and other sectors in slow decline. To be successful we need independent thinkers who can contribute ideas.
I studied very little computer science in college. Instead, I devoted the majority of my effort into studying history. As time went on, I took up philosophy and computer science as hobbies. I now do IT and programming for a living. Because HR departments want worker bees usually I work as a consultant, and my work speaks for itself. Indeed I credit much of my success to the fact that I have studied what I found interesting and developed strong critical thinking skills in the field.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
High school has long since been about a BASIC education. College is meant for real knowledge that can be used. This has been true for at least has long as I was in high school. High school cannot be seen as a path to job market in itself.
Of course I speak as a technical person. Sure, you can still have a wonderful career in a number of service industries without college.
Power to the Penguin!
I don't see a logical solution happening anytime soon, mainly because for over 30 years formal classes in Logic have not been taught in public schools.
I don't quite understand what you mean. If you're an engineering major, your freshman year probably includes physics (mechanics, kinematics, electricity and optics), possibly chemistry, a computer language, a general engineering methods class, and lots of calculus. All of these classes would be at a higher level than the highest level offered in High School AP.
Now, if what you mean is, Students are capable of learning these things earlier and aren't being taught them, then I completely agree. There is nothing innate about a 17-year-old that enables them to start learning calculus. Calculus is not inherently difficult. The problem is that maybe 5% of calculus teachers (in High School and University) know how to teach it effectively. There's not even anything difficult about quantum physics or organic chemistry - they are "dreaded" subjects because they are hard to explain and require prior knowledge building up to their understanding.
We can remove grades 1-5, which teach the finer points of cutting and pasting construction paper, adding and subtracting and multiplying, and how to read and write english. The only thing of value from that five year block was reading and writing. Arithmetic does not take five years to understand. Children are not stupid, they are just expected to be stupid. We can start Junior High at age six, play catchup in the literacy game, and have people ready to go to college - or not - by 14 years old.
This is about the age when people used to be expected to get a job in every century except this one. Keeping people in school for five extra years is just stultifying and produces good worker bees. This way, if you want to go to college, you graduate from that at around 18, and effectively have five more years of productive money-earning and accomplishing potential.
My two cents...
For me college is nothing more than a money-sucking machine. I am just one of its many cogs. As a freshman in college studying Computer Science, who has/is taken/taking 3xx-4xx CS courses, I find college to be a complete waste of my time. Correction - I find the "gened" classes to me a complete waste of my time. I think I better explain myself.
I love my CS classes. They are interesting, exciting and at my level (3xx-4xx courses) are quite challenging. I love my mathematics classes (currently taking 3xx level mathematics course in Linear Algebra). What I _don't_ like is being forced to waste my time every day doing assignments for fluff classes that I can't avoid. Look - there is nothing wrong with making sure you can still form coherent sentences. However, having 5-6 10-page assignments is pushing the boat a bit, considering I am NOT aiming for an English major, m'kay? Next - social sciences. Many of you will naturally respond in a condescending tone that 'these course will expand your mind.' I call bullshit. Having reviewed the course catalog, I have seen nothing of worth to expand my mind with. The list of courses from which I have to pick ranges from "Psych 101" to "feminism study." I think I can live without any of this shit. If only the courses offered actually EXPANDED my horizons by allowing me to indulge in say... Norse mythology or history of Astronomy, or an in-depth analysis of Dante's Inferno, OR A STUDY OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. But no. Study of a foreign culture's language is not a viable option for fulfilling the "cultural development" requirement of graduation, yet studying the plight of [insert-favorite-oppressed-group] is. A non sequitur at its finest.
To repeat a point already addressed by others in this discussion, I should state that I am PAYING these sons-of-a-bitches to waste my time and make my life miserable. This is coming out of my own pocket. I see the value of having a broad education, but "study of feminism and gender issues" and other similar redundant crap is NOT going to expand my mind. The classes that will give me a broad outlook on life - such as study of foreign languages (and I mean _study_, not the cursory, slanted and biased overview of some miniscule topic pertaining to some culture), mathematics (the Lin. Alg. course I am taking is not part of my fard. requirement, and thus is for my own enlightment only), history of major cultures in the past millenia and not of some minor occurance within the past 25 years, etc.
What the hell happened to the "trivium" and the "quadrivium" - the REAL liberal arts, as opposed to the crap forced down our throats that will simply make us clueless cogs, ready to be exploited by the system, instead of thinking sensible adults??
Since when was a school supposed to teach everything one needed? This is a very new idea - until very recently, it seems that "everything you needed" was learned outside of school, at your home, or a workplace (as an apprenticeship, etc...) School was, and to some extent still is, the place to learn academic subjects - those that, by definition, you don't really "need" for life. They certainly are good to know, but it's a different kind of learning. The concept that all your life and career skills would be taught in a school like this is, to be honest, a little bizarre.
When I was in elementary school (DODDS [Department of Defense Dependant Schooling]), we didn't have enough students to spread them out evenly for all of the grades. Twice, I was placed into a mixed-year class.
For some things, the whole class interacted with each other (reading time, recess, etc). But for much of the day, the teacher would teach one grade, while the other group did their classwork assignments. That time might've been otherwise been used by the teacher to grade papers -- but she didn't grade quizzes, tests, homework, or classwork -- the class did.
She would collect up all of our work, mix them up, and hand them back to the class, and give us red pens. If anyone got their own page, we had to trade with whoever was next to us. She'd read out the answers, and we'd mark them, and sign our name as the grader. She'd collect them, and do spot checks to make sure we didn't mess up. [someone could also complain if they were unfairly marked].
Now, in today's high schools, there are chances at people cheating -- spot checks can help, and if you find something was consistently boosting grades, you have it impact their grade negatively. Some folks might complain that kids might make fun of the others who don't get high grades -- yes, there's that chance [we actually had the opposite -- I remember getting teased for getting good grades], but there's also the possibility that if there isn't so much anomynity that kids will have reason to work harder.
I admit, this won't work for essay questions and longer reports, but there is no reason for teachers to be taking home stacks of papers to grade every night. Sure, they might mean well, and be dedicated to their job, but it's like anything -- work smarter, not harder.
I admit, I'm not a teacher, but I do have a few friends who are teachers, and occassionally drop by my highschool, more than 10 years later. [I actually gave a talk, when I accidentally dropped in on the day they were covering 'The Internet' and 'Search Engines'] -- it seems to me that the problem isn't so much the size, but problems with such a heterogeneous mix of students. Some students are solitary learners, some learn by example, some are very visual, some like story context, and some have to learn by doing.
It might be possible to take the same idea above (more than one 'class', but instead of seperating by age -- seperate by learning style. [I'm not sure which would be easier to handle, and this would probably need some tests run to validate the idea]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Not sure I'd be tossing around the word "obsolete" too much if I were you.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Bill Gates is a guy with essentially a high school education who presides over one of the largest and most oppressive monopoly corporations ever created. Having him advise us on better educational approaches is a little like Al Capone advising us on better tax collection methods.
In a larger sense, though, his argument is essentially the perennial 'training' vs. 'education' argument. Training proponents such as Gates would have us all learn 'skills' that quickly become obsolete anyway (this is also what communist countries typically advocate) while 'education' proponents recognize the value of an educated populace capable of independent thinking about a variety of topics.
I look forward to hearing from Shirley Maclaine and Moammar Khaddafi, two original thinkers who can move their lips without lying, on this issue.
Handwringing about the quality of American education usually preceeds whining about shortages of workers.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the quality of the schools will be less important anyway because most of the jobs likely to be created in the next decade don't require a bachelor degree. This Businessweek artticle summarizes that point.
I know many underemployed people today. Some were underemployed during good times. And now the BLS says this is likely to not only continue but worsen. So why is there a hue and cry about bad schools? Why are industry leaders like Gates involved? They are setting the table for subsequent lobbying campaigns to raise the quotas of H1-B and L1 visas. This isn't the first time they've followed this script and it won't be the last.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
So what is he trying to sell now?.
There will be a microsoft product behind this, wait and see.
He will probably announce a home-schooling initiative over the internet (that obviously will require parents to pay some Microsoft fee ).
Actually that might be a pretty smart move, not only for the money but it ties the next gen. of kids into a Microsoft-only mentality.
I agree with this. Particularly in Maths, in my last few years of high school I would hardly ever complete homework assignments because the work set would involve doing the same exercise 20 or 30 times with small variations, presumably in an attempt to drive the "procedure" home. I decided that I would just do enough that I felt confident in my understanding of what was being taught and handed that in. I was old enough at this point that little was done about it aside from a periodic slap on the wrist, but when I think back to how much time I spent throughout my time at school doing these kinds of things it makes me quite sick.
(I'm in the UK, by the way. I assume the US education system operates similarly in this respect.)
Everyon always whines about how kids are getting dumber, etc. It is all BS. I am 30 years old, basically failed my way thru school. Probally had a 2.0 oe less GPA. I now make over $70,000 a year working at a bank doing the Online Banking, Security and other websites. I had no collage. We had a entry level college grade just start, he makes $30,000 and sets up peoples preinters. Real good his expensive college education did him.
Weh nI was in grade school, my first homework was in 4th grade. I took algebra in my Senior year... and failed it. My kids take algebra in Jr.High now. They have 4 times more homework then me.
So the kids are not getting dumber, they are making the classes harder and harder.
For me it was because I do not learn by reading books and being lectured too, I learn by tearing it apart and puting it back together. The reason computers and programming come so naturally to me. AlthoughI do suck at programming, but I understand how they work and I get paid for my problem solving and off beat thinking.
School keeps getting harder and we are blaming the kids. they brains are no more evolved then someone of $1000 years ago. So how can they be expected to learn more. Also since no one learns the same kids like who I was get shit on, but now i laugh my ass off when I see my smart college going school mates putting tires on my sports car.
Windows didn't work? I beg to differ. If you accept reality, you'd realize that a gigantic portion of the population uses windows over any other OS. And Bill was right in this case. Obsolete things can be fixed. Though, you bring to mind a quote from the MythBusters, "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
"I never found any value in the school system so I never bothered to study... hence the main reason I'm unemployed."
You're blaming the "system" for your unemployment?
My friend, the buck (for everything in life) ultimately stops with the person in charge of that life.
Sure, there are externalties, but the only real variable is you.
One cause I see for the US school system failing is how so much money they pour into programs that don't do much to promote academics at all, namely athletics. Sports are great and all in a recreational sense, but I don't see why money should be diverted from things like new textbooks, art and music programs, refitting a computer lab, etc. just so a handful of students can play games after or sometimes during school. I think Maddox would agree.
I'm in high school. Bill is absolutely right(I know I'm a supporter of him, but he is wrong sometimes...don't bother responding solely to this little excerpt to tell me what you think he's done wrong though). I do OK in high school, but with my extremely severe ADD, and mild neuromuscular handicap(myoclonic dystonia) that hampers my ability to perform schoolwork, I get what is called an IEP(individualized education profile) that is a legally binding document drawn by the school, the schools child study team, my parents, and myself, detailing changes in my curriculuum, ways I take tests, etcetera, to accomodate me. I bend the fuck out of the rules to get by. I think that our school system needs to be reevaluated to where it works for everyone, and this clearly won't be a straightforward system. The system needs to be flexible, to the individual, and I think that if the resources could be provided, all students could be periodically reviewed, and have individualized education profiles. I'm experienced in going through the system, not designing it though.
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
Thank you Bill Gates aka Captain Obvious.
I agree with the parent poster. I'm currently in grade 10 high school. I spent about 1 week browsing through the textbook, and feel that i have a fairly good understanding of everything in it. I surprised myself by getting a grade 11 textbook and understanding a lot of it. Everything is a rehash of what we have learned before, over and over again. If I had a teacher to help me, I'm sure that I could probably pass math and science in about a month. However, Would i remember everything? Having everything retaught to me over and over really helps me remember it, and I'm sure that I'm less likely to forget what I've learned. Also, being the bright one means i get to help classmates. This is really a good learning experience because I have to be able to grasp the concepts really well to teach them. I agree the education system isn't well built for smarter students, but these are the students who can go and learn on their own. Not that self teaching is anywhere near as fun or engaging as being taught is.
Waffles rock.
Divide classes into three categories:
1. Smart
2. Average
3. Below average
Make it easy to transition back and forth between categories IF academic objectives are in line with the requirements. Make it _not cool_ to be in #3. Call them losers or something, because that's what they really are. If this hurts kids "psychologically", fuck psychology. The world is a harsh place, if you don't want to study (and your parents don't care), get ready to be a loser.
Finally, make it challenging but cool to remain in bucket #1.
The reason why kids don't give a crap about studying is because it's "cool" to not study. Change that, and ungrateful cocksuckers will study like you wouldn't believe.
Worse still, however, is the core change in attitude: now learning is all about fnding a job.
What Industry says they want is "more people who have passed test X". Government thinks this means "a higher percentage of the public who can pass test X", but Industry really means "more public, so that we can utilize the Y% that are competent enough to make it over the bar".
Industry really doesn't give a damn about people who enjoy literature or art or geography. They demand that universities churn out specialists in Math, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. And they don't care how many people you have to feed to the machine, they just want more of the end product, because those that make it out of higher education make the widgets they sell.
I think that maybe the problem with schools now is that they used to be about teaching students about the things they wanted to learn. Now they're about molding people the way industry wants.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I happen to be enrolled in a school which is currently receiving money from the Gates Foundation for a new program designed to fix what has "gone wrong" with the tradional high school. When Bill talks about how schools are broken, I am sure he has my school on his mind as an example of positive change. Our school has reduced class sizes for more personal instruction, divided up the student body into three separate "houses" to foster a more intimate student/teacher relationship, and the school (based in CA) has restructured the curriculum to ensure that every student is UC eligible by Junior Year. It is all working great- to a point. There is no longer room for electives, and you cannot request teachers or arrange a switch to a different teacher in the event of a conflict. The student body is just as ignored as it was before, nobody wants our input on anything. The classes are so focused at my school on preparation for getting us to college that all I have done in my English class for the past two years is write the same format essay over and over on different subjects, because apparently you are not expected to critically examine issues in imaginative ways when you get to college, instead you just sit and write format essays and find the etymologies of "spelling vocabulary." Best of all- In order to get enough teachers to expand the program, the district is contemplating cutting all of our counselors and librarians. No library. I'll take the "broken" school over this one.
> Step 2 from:
> 1) Install Windows Longhorn
> 2) ????
> 3) Profit!
2) Wait, it doesn't exist yet !
they don't teach them linux!
You don't need a degree to work at McDonald's (to do the actual job). You can be trained up very quickly at McDonald's to work there. So to go through a 4 year degree to work there is just a waste of time, especially considering most of the stuff learned, people do not remember.
I don't know about everyone else, but my high school certainly wasn't teaching me properly. Inbetween the daily 'be true to your school' atmosphere and regular assaults on my secular lifestyle, I found that I couldn't take it in the middle of my junior year. I had my father say he was home schooling me and simply walked out of lit class one day. On discovering that none of the colleges I was applying to required a high school diploma, but instead only had course requirements, I took off for community college.
Besides my mental sanity being regained and never having to see that egg-scrutinizing "counselor", again, my GPA shot from 3.3 to a 4.0 and I had much success with the schools. (Princeton (wait listed), Duke (accepted), Vanderbilt (accepted), Whitman (accepted), University of Washington (accepted)).
Nowadays, I know more than one "dropout" like me and we all have experience in the tech sector, many of us making six-figures - some of us without college. If I had to boil it down to one reason: dropping out of high school means taking the time to ask yourself what YOU want to be, rather than being shaped and indoctrinated with little input in your own formative years. The real kicker is that state laws required that I still be allowed to participate in all extracurriculars, so zero harm to my social life, too. ;) Just do it.
I agree with Bill Gates here. High school was such a joke. Little has be done to get by. Morever, I have seen cases where failing student have moved on to the next level just to get them out. Japan, UK and other Eurpoean schools provide a better challenge. The only reason the U.S stays on top in many science and technology related fields is because we spend so much money on research through 100's of Phd programs across the nation. The top echelon of R&D allows us to be leading in science and technology. I wish I would have been introduced to advanced concepts early. Unfortunately, I was not so like millions of others just taught myself, went to a university and graduated as an engineer.
Socrates said it best, and it says it all:
"All I know is that I know nothing..."
No matter how small a class is, if a student doesn't have a will to do any work, that's it for him/her. Only the chosen few would be successful no matter how school system is redesigned.
buffering...
Imagine if we ever taught students to actually think about history, literature, or economics rather than making sure that they memorized the answers for the test?
What if we really encouraged students to ask the primary questions of philosophy before introducing them to the ideas of philosophers:
Metaphysics: "What is the nature of things?"
Aesthetics: "What is the nature of Beauty?"
Ethics: "What is the nature of Good?"
In essence what if we really taught our students to think rather than to be good test-passing machines?
What if we actually had professionals come in and explain to algegra classes why algebra is so useful and how they use it? And what if we told more young women about the likes of Grace Hopper and Augusta Ada Byron? Would we not inspire children to learn more about the world around them?
My son is now 14 months old, and I keep thinking more and more about how to prepare for his eventual schooling and make sure he can think and approach matters of substance.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Windows didn't work? I beg to differ.
Well, so do I since I didn't say that. Windows "worked" in the business sense: it allowed Microsoft to maintain a near monopoly. Technically, it was a complete mess.
If you accept reality, you'd realize that a gigantic portion of the population uses windows over any other OS.
A gigantic proportion of the population also doesn't floss, is overweight, and eats at McDonald's.
And Bill was right in this case.
In what case? Bill knows nothing about education and he hasn't said anything of substance.
thanks, Bill.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
I am a high school teacher (computer science/engineering, I might add)
...confiscated a knife from a student last week... ...stopped a couple of guys from kicking and punching each other 2 days ago during lunch... ...walked through a hallway full of marijuana smoke yesterday... ...documented appalling graffitti on a locker bullying a girl who uses the locker... ...received an essay from a young woman who implied that she had been abused since grade three...
Yes, such a "cushy" job I have...
Yes, such a "cushy" job those teachers have, and the summers off too. Unless you have been there, you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT...
Dear slashdot/Bill Gates/et al.: Stick to computers. You know nothing of teachers and education.
Our local school system is out control. They spend $10,000/kid/yr, hire some good teachers and still don't have results. Why? Politics - partly NEA bs, partly just inept, power drunk yocals. The school district now hires young unqualified administrators for the "Administration" i.e. teachers for several years in another level, do several admin rotations and presto bingo they are Principal of a battleship sized high school. These administrators, now with an ego to match, mess with the teachers and perhaps the parents that try to straighten them out. Every 10 years a new fad sweeps the system to deal with the previous failure.
There are no hs honors math and science classes. In English and history, the honors classes are a joke. Even the AP classes are open enrollment, to fill them.
I blame the NEA for the lack of discipline and watered down, detracked education. Tracking is necessary, it needed to be fair minded and not socially driven (Dr Kildare's little slugs don't need a free pass). I learned twice what my kids were taught for Biology and Chemistry. Tracking will always be a problem because the percentage of kids in the borderline areas is quite large, with motivation and drive being big factors. Nevertheless, education needs to be strongly differentiated, otherwise it is a failure for all. A rule of thumb is that reading / learning speed doubles every 20 IQ points and its nature changes. Putting adequately motivated kids in a classroom 1.5-2 deviations "wide" (24-32 IQ pts) is likely to avoid losing, or anchoring kids. A 50-70 point spread is just criminal - everyone loses. Artificial self esteem is no substitute for the real thing - at every level.
Many parents aren't. Whether single parent, poor, work overstressed, substance abusing, TV & interactive video benumbed, previously under prepared, etc, many parents just are not raising their kids adequately. A regular school might save some of these by intensive challenge but many are not reachable. Often, null parents = a zero kid.
Top students are often interfered with by the administration or misguided by ill fit teachers. I swear they have policies designed to sabotage the upper end kids. Administration withholds critical information, tries to prevent customization, obstructs and penalizes independent efforts to bridge glaring gaps. Meaningless honors/college prep courses, bad SAT advice, lack of college support, or "it's not important". Top 1% senior, you don't really need a science class - from the curriculum principal. Adverse treatment of initiative and efforts. Good thing the teachers like my kids.
Many are amazed at how well our kids have done. I sulk over what they really should have had. A free public education has been most expensive for us.
Besides, ideas have been explored and introduced in fiction for a long time (the earliest example I can think of offhand is Plato's Republic). And even crazy people can come up with interesting ideas.
But here I am, feeding the troll.
I think that the other attitdue that goes with that, it that on /. people don't seem to expect eductation to be hard work. That is, it is important to learn some things that you don't want to learn. Deal with it.
meh
Interestingly enough, Y2K was not the first time he predicted the end of the world. Check this out for some fun reading about Mr. North.
I have several friends that have been a year in the US, studying at a high school (yes, the foreign exchange students that always seem senile in the hollywood movies,) and even the ones that I would hardly classify as "smart", "clever" or "hard-working" got very good grades. They also said that nearly all tests were multiple choice, opposed to the tests here in Denmark, where we usually have to write long explanations.
Now, don't flame me if I'm wrong. After all, I've never studied at a US high school myself. But is any of this actually true?
I am a very firm believer in free education, both high school and college, for every citizen. Too allow everybody the equal ability to achieve their potential. But if we are to make that investment, we cannot waste our resources trying to teach people who aren't willing and able to learn.
Laws like No Child Left Behind turn the focus away from encouraging the students who will make this country great by forcing our schools to waste time preparing the unpreparable, or face penalties. How are we losing? We're too focused on general education, throughout our educational system, and not enough attention paid to making each student the best they can be.
The actual problem with schools are that they are not focusing enough on the core needs upon which all education rests.
Personally, I think that schools should teach only three things; Language, Mathematics, and Discipline.
With language, all knowledge is merely a library away, and communication will be a lot easier than it is for a good number of people.
With mathematics, just about anything can be quantified.
With discipline, a person can successfully organize the above two skills into a weapon with which to attack their future.
Once the schools finish with those three very important skills, the student can then begin the process of building the rest of their own education. Higher learning can still be available, but they should be optional and specialized based on what the student is interested in learning, rather than forcing the student to learn their way.
The Penguin Producer
There are two schools of thought on the purpose of schooling.
1. People should be given a well-rounded education until they reach the age to decide what they want to pursue for themselves. This includes things like literature and history as well as "more practical" subjects like math and science.
2. The purpose of school is to turn out productive members of society by training them in a particular vocation.
In either sense the American school system is a dismal disaster. I don't know about the rest of you but during my high school years I didn't truly learn much of anything. In history class you are not offered explanations for why things happened or lessons for how to prevent similar catastrophes from happening again, you are given a list of terms and dates to memorize. The same is true to some extent for every subject I was taught.
As far as vocational training, I would guess less than 1% of the average individual's useful job knowledge comes from their high school experience. Basic math, science and language are obviously useful. But there is no significant push toward understanding economics, computers, business practices in the real world, etc.
Gates is right. High school is obselete.
kinch
http://returnself.com/blog/
The high school as we know it should be abolished and the money spent on high school should be spent on supporting individual learning plans.
There should be rules governing what is acceptable and the money currently spent on high schools could be spent on these other endeavors. Kids should be strongly encouraged and society should provide strong incentives for kids not to just go to work but to actually develop themselves and continue their education in some way. Counselors would be made available to help the student develop a plan.
For example, one student might attend community college for two years, spend a year volunteering on a Costa Rican nature park, and then on to a university. Another student might go to a technical school and then do an internship. While still a third student might go to a trade school followed by an apprenticeship. There are many combinations.
And again the money currently spent on school buildings, teachers, and lawnmowers, would be spent to support the students educational projects for several years. Without the overhead of high schools I think the money would go a lot further.
All educational plans would have to be approved by some body to insure that frivolous plans did not get through -- however, the bias would be toward approving most reasonable plans. The students would have to articulate their goals, what they hope to accomplish, and specifically how the plan would move them toward the goal.
Some people might worry about this putting teachers out of work. Well, this plan would create work for community college teachers. It would create work for technical and trade school teachers. It would create work for highly qualified counselors who would help students to develop plans and then constantly follow-up to insure the student is meeting his or her committments.
Perhaps the earlier years in school could be made a bit more intense to make sure that all students leave after the ninth grade with the basics. It would set a real deadline to achieve that goal and a huge amount of effort and resources could be put into the early grades to prepare for the day when they would have to take responsibility for their own learning and development.
Would some people fall through the cracks? Of course. But the current system clearly is not working and lots of people already fall through the cracks. Clearly, the self-motivated will do well as they always have. However, I think that those who are not motivated by the current system might be *more* motivated if they could take charge of their education and go to the community college to get that art degree (or whatever) and then on to university.
I guess what he really means is:
If they don't have Win XP, they're obsolete.
confiscated a knife from a student last week
Was he trying to stab or cut you or someone else with it?
No?
Then what the fuck are you complaining about?
stopped a couple of guys from kicking and punching each other 2 days ago during lunch
Typical shit, at least you aren't a cop where those people would probably have guns and wouldn't be afraid to hurt/kill you.
walked through a hallway full of marijuana smoke yesterday
It's a LOT better for you than cigarette smoke. You should be thankful.
documented appalling graffitti on a locker bullying a girl who uses the locker
Ooooo! Spray Paint! Fucking SCARY MAN.
received an essay from a young woman who implied that she had been abused since grade three
Welcome to the real world, best to get desensitized to it sooner rather than later.
High School is a war zone, has been since the 70s, possibly earlier. Best get fucking used to it and start preparing for the worst.
Paul Brandwein said it decades ago, and it's still true.
/or learn a trade / turn pro), society as we know it now will not work as we know it. Somebody has to haul the garbage and clean the toilets. Gandhi aside, that's not typically an everyone-pitches-in thing.
Sadly, if we don't have a supply of menial labor (i.e., those who won't go past high school and
Bill's run up against a basic dilemma of American education - we modeled our expectations on the successes of the pre-US western education - where only the fittest (wealthy or landed) got educated, then applied the model to every last person. As a teacher, I want every kid to get from point A to point B, whatever that may mean to them, the further the better, and I imagine applying everything you can find in successful education to the betterment of any student who walks through the door, molded to their particular needs. But we didn't build that system - yet. Reducing class size is one important part - but hardly a solution.
An additional evil is that a lot of people in schools label the kids they're sure will fail and pretty much turn them into self-fulfilling prophecies when they do. I've worked in prized suburban high schools where the lowest (phase / track / etc.) is still openly referred to as the "Sweathogs". They pretty much assume their role and set up for a life of minimum wage jobs.
Maybe that's the problem the Pars-dint is trying to solve with those workaday visas he's pushing.
Cause he's sure not fixing it with NCLB...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
High school could be both more elitist and more populist, more technical and more creative, more broad and more specific, etc. It could be everything we want it to be... if it weren't compulsory. Human beings are naturally creative and curious. Give kids a fast uncensored internet connection, a library card, and access to real working professionals who can answer questions, and they will end up learning far more then they would in the brutal authoritarian environment of the public high school. Those who want more structure can go to private prep school or (god forbid*) parochial school. Those who are truely unmotivated to learn will simply get what they deserve...**
High school aged people in colonial america and europe were active participants in politics (think of all the young monarchs) and the economy (if they weren't full fledged workers, they were apprentices). Maturity was not an issue then, and shouldn't be now. Both teen-agers and adults have regressed to a state of infantile subserviance to a government that feels it must protect them from the evils of obscenity and crime. The only way to restore freedom to America is to destroy the police infested schools, the marketing dominated corporate media, and the pedophile controled church.
Leader's aren't going to to this...we need to take up arms and defent student's rights as human beings. They should not be subject to degrading searches for drugs. They have the RIGHT to put whatever they want in their bodies. They have the right to not be imprisoned for the sake of indoctronation for 12 years. We must never let our schooling get in the way of our education (thank you Mark Twain).
*I'm a pritty staunch anti-dogmatic agnostic
**I wonder if this is happening at a global level--a sort of social darwinism turned on it's head. The idiotic population of this nation has rejected reason and continues to support politicians who seak nothing short of golbal US dominence at vast human costs (read some of the work of Project for a New American Century) and corporation's who's only product is waste (marketing and advertising come to mind....if people were intelligent they would become informed about a product from consumer reports or a friend, not some paid shill). Meanwhile our economy continues to falter. The people of Asia and Europe are becoming more educated and more fit to actually produce something useful. And if they are paid less the us, so what, they deserve it more. The only negative aspect of globilisation I see is the threat of multinational corporations using capital flight to continuously move to the nations with the lowest labor standards or threaten to do so unless that nation they are currently in loosens it's regulation on safty and human rights. This should be stoped, not with meaningless protests, or appeals for more government regulation. We need an international union of workers, organised by industry, not class or nation. The IWW is a good start. http://www.iww.org/
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Hey, Bill...so are viruses, spyware, and the inability to contact the author of buggy code!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Your definition of smart varies greatly to mine obviously. What you describe is simply a rounded person, NOT a smart one (not trying to say the two are mutually exclusive)
Without specialisation there is no advancement. If researchers did not spend years of there lives devoted to a single and focussed topic there would be no advancement in that area. Sure we might all be able to change our oil, except that no one would have spent enough time to research the internal combustion engine. Do you know how to change a horseshoe?
What about focussing because that area interests you and you want to mkake a difference? This is the heart of academia. If you want to be rounded go and do a 12 week practical course. If you want to make a difference got to uni and study.
I've thought for a while now that maybe Bachelor's programs (especially engineering degree) should be expanded to five years, and maybe high school as well.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Not quite. Poor performance is usually due to zero interest level in the material being taught, which is primarily attributable to a poorly-designed cirriculum for students.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
High school cirriculums tend to be poorly-designed beasts. Ideally, high school cirriculums should be modelled after the college / university model in some respects. I would have loved the idea of more options for courses in high school, and I'm sure teachers would agree.
Teaching the same Chemistry or English material for years, I assume, would only reduce the effectiveness of the teacher in helping the student's understand the material.
In any event, I regress.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Now that computers are so easy to use, kids spend all day playing games, IM'ing, and wasting their time not studying/learning.
If he wouldn't have made Windows (which brought computers to the masses), they would be have more time reading the books and not goofing off.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
At the secondary level, private/parochial schools often can fix the problems that plague public schools; the reduced sizes, more individualized attention, and a greater breadth of course choices allow students to choose a curriculum suited to their interests and ambitions. Unfortunately, most Americans probably can't send their children to a private institution. This is why school vouchers need to be issued. By providing access to private schools for the marginalized, disenfranchised middle class of America, the government directly incentivises excellence; I'm willing to believe that most parents with children in the public school system aren't happy with the way things operate. A competitive marketplace forms, and just like an economic system, pressures would force public schools to change the way they operate in order to address the concerns and desires of their constituencies. Having discussed this issue at length outside of /., I'd like to preclude a few common responses:
1. Separation of church and state would be violated if the government provided vouchers to parochial schools.
Two responses: First, the religious influence of parochial schools are often superficial. The singing of religious hymns hardly constitutes a declaration of faith or external pressure. Theological classes don't proselytize; religious texts, like other documents, can be historically significant, and classes about them carry secular educational value. Second, I'd urge people to reject the semantic bullshit about how mentioning any deity is inherently exclusionary. Not only does it infringe upon the rights of the religious, but the harms that occur from such discourse are far outweighed by the educational advantages.
2. Public schools/teachers are hurt by voucher systems.
Tough. These institutions have been failing us, and competitive pressures are the way to solve them. We as a society should be able weigh harms without squirming about the people who will be affected; I'm willing to ruin some lives for the greater good of society.
Just my two cents.
If the public schools would offer anything more than US television does we might do better. 90% of the class in any public school spends 90% of the time watching the three stupidist people in class waste their time getting "water evaporates 'cause" re-explained to them.
An institution who's entire purpose is to teach children shouldn't be dumbed down to the bottom 5% just so their numbers won't be 30% failing.
I understand that there are "special" classes for the people with disabilities and it's not PC to even talk about that. What I want to know is where are the classes that can get the ditch diggers that can't grasp ideas out of my childrens way? They don't give a half a damn anyway because they DON'T WANT TO LEARN. Teach them that special shovel grip so the rest of us can use the school to learn in?
You have to admit, not everyone is cut out to be a particle phyisist. The majority of people will fill menial jobs and go from trailer park to trailer park for the rest of their lives just getting by and being happy with Survivor on tv and a six pack in the fridge.
And then he did that thing with that stuff and it was like, wow...
Although that was posted as a funny, it's something that Bill could and should do. The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation could give away for free, software so that a slightly motivated kid could teach themselves high school coursework. With the catch that it runs only on Windows, so step 3 is profit. In 1981 I worked at the University of Delaware's office of computer-based instruction, where we were designing the software to do this sort of thing. It was just around the corner. A generation later, the good news is most high school students have computers, but they are still stuck in compulsory education big-box prisons which teach to the lowest common denominator, at a cost in tax dollars of, say, 5K per kid per year. It wouldn't have to be microsoft that does this; they are just one of the players that could do this soonest with the resources they already have. Maybe I should pitch this to google instead.
A smart person should know what the word "troll" means. A smart person should know that it's not just a pejorative term meaning "person whom I dislike."
The word for that is "shithead."
As in, "Here I am, feeding the shithead."
Now go away, shithead.
"He said high schools must be redesigned to prepare every student for college"
That is exactly the problem right now. The High Schools are cheating. They are each designing their teaching to get students IN TO College.
I'm sure way back when, a student was truly taught about a subject, was more likely to understand it, and the testing verified his/her understanding without the bias of scoring well for the school. Then SATs came in and all of a sudden all these students were writing the same test to see who scored better. In some high schools students were more talented, or teachers better, and in others the students got left behind. So what do the schools do? They cheat! Hey lets teach our kids how to take the SATs....lets put valuable time into making sure our kids get a better score. Make sure they can answer those particular questions, but who cares if they do not understand the principles.
One school does this, and others have to compete and cheat as well. It just keeps getting worse and worse after that. This also causes talented kids trying to truly understand something to get screwed over by kids that can memorize sample exams and pass a test better.
We're no longer testing for talent, drive and ability.
So my suggestion is "Do NOT prepare kids for College". Mandate that High Schools can not prepare kids to write SATs, go through old exams, etc.
from Buckminster Fuller, in 1972:
I think universities are completely obsolete. I think they're having these troubles because they're supposed to be eliminated. There's very little that goes on at a university that can't be done better otherwise. The biggest raison d'être for the present system is the security of the professor. He's got tenure. Has anybody else got tenure? Hell, no. Those tenure boys are really a shame; they're so businesslike, they really look out for themselves.
Once you eliminate the obsolete structure and the emphasis on earning a living, people will go to the university because they want to use themselve and explore their wonderful capabilities. Humanity will carry on beautifully if you don't mix them up with earning a living. We'll make wonderful use of those buildings and all that equipment. That's what the tenure boys are so scared of. They've been living on the idea of monopolizing the information, but now they see the time coming when the big idea ill be to proliferate it and try to see that everybody gets to share it.
I belong to the ______ generation.
So this week they say Schools are obsolete and last week or so they said Windows was more secure than Linux. If they don't keep their mouth shut the stock is going to take a dive...
Microsoft is really on top of building better idiots.
Your Average Joe
Gates baby, Microsoft is the one that's obsolete.
He's just worried that high schools are sooner or later going to start telling their students to think rather than go with whatever corporate america tells them.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
High school and college aren't about "specializing". Their purpose is (at least) twofold:
- to turn you into an educated citizen
- to teach you how to learn, so that the educational process can (hopefully) continue long after you've left the structured environment of a school.
People who say, "I'll never use this after I'm out of school," worry me. They think life is all about narrowing whatever (little) knowledge they have to a very specific focus, making it nigh impossible to view anything from a more abstract perspective. In my opinion, it's not too much better than not getting an education at all.
I'm going to assume that the same person wrote these. It's so nice when people are willing to stand behind everything that they say.
That said, your post clearly fits the definition of a troll because it adds nothing to the discussion aside from: a) You're stupid for quoting somebody, b) you're even stupider for quoting somebody I dislike.
Your continued exploration (?) of this theme in your latest post only confirms that you are: a) a troll, and b) possibly a shithead by your own definition (since I tend to find that I dislike people with nothing better to do than to write "you're stupid!" posts).
Or why don't you post with your real nick, so that we can all see how intelligent and reasonable a person you are, and how wrong I am I so malign you?
US school districts nationwide could save themselves a huge amount of money if they would form textbook consortiums to create a standard suite of open, free textbooks.
Do we really need 100 different algebra textbooks, with royalties paid to 100 different authors? Do school districts really need to pay for the content, when all they really need to do is pay for the physical printing of the book? And does the printing really need to be more sophisticated than just using a copy machine?
I dream of the day when students simply print their own textbooks -- or perhaps they'll skip the printing step and just read them in a browser.
Of course, this would eventually result in the collapse of the textbook publishing industry. I would glady see that entire industry wiped out, if it means that local school districts can stretch their dollars farther.
My wife is a HS english teacher, and even she says the system needs a complete redesign.
Yes, I know many teachers who say the same thing in private.
I personally am somewhat enamored by the Sudbury Valley model. At the very least, I believe some of its principles would be beneficial to mainstream education.
It's true taxes are higher in Canada, but for most people -- the middle class -- they're not that different. And while you may get taxed in one area you might make out better in others -- such as unlimited capital gains exemption on your primary residence, vs. $250/500k in the US.
Cost of living is generally lower too, especially in the cities. Vancouver may be expensive, but it's more affordable for its citizens than NYC, DC, SF, or "the OC" are for theirs. I'm always amazed at how many young (30) Vancouverites with average jobs I meet who own their own houses and condos. In any major metro area in the US nowadays, this is limited to the extremely successful or the already rich.
Higher taxes or not, I believe Canadians actually have a higher standard of living than Americans -- even if the standard measures don't show it. The real challenge for most Americans in Canada would not be taxes, but long, cold, dark winters.
how'd it manage to turn out all of us?
I have kids in public school now, and I know that the system is okay. Kids today are okay. No need to panic on this issue.
BTW, Bill "why would a PC ever need more than 64k of RAM?" Gates is no visionary.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
The scary bit though is that Bill Gates is making public statements about education. Drawing attention to the fact that the world's richest man (Bill) is a college drop-out cannot help motivate kids to get educated.
As a parent, I think that schools can only teach a certain amount. You don't only learn in a school environment. The most important thing for kids to learn is that life is all about learning.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If that were the case,then there'd be no trolls on slashdot.
:-)
In the Catholic High Schools here in Canada, instead of taking religion in Gr. 12 (They removed Gr. 13 recently), we have the option of taking "Philosophy: Questions and Theories". From the little blurb on the course outline:
"This course addresses three (or more) of the main areas of philosophy: metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics. Students will learn critical thinking skills, the main ideas expressed by philosophers from a variety of the world's traditions, how to develop and explain their own philosophical ideas, and how to apply those ideas to contemporary social issues and personal experiences. The course will also help students refine skills used in researching and investigating topics in philosophy."
Oh, Canada...
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
How can we even start to improve high schools in America if we can't even agree on what should be taught?
High schools will continue to fail their students when "liberal" boards of education decide to teach evolutionary theory while backwoods podunk boards of education decide that "creationism" should be taught in science class.
A national panel of educators, scientists, researchers, and business representatives needs to decide what is needed by today's kids to succeed in life.
Education is too important to leave to the whim of local school boards. Parents should not have the option of sending their kids to "non-accredited" institutions - or worse - home schooling.
Too many people in this country have been taught the "Adam and Eve" fairytale, that calculus and algebra aren't necessary for a good job, and history classes are only good if you want to teach it.
Green Day's newest album title "Idiot America" seems so appropriate these days.
-ted
I'll proclaim US high schools and Microsoft obsolete...
Geeky modern art T-shirts
All this from someone who has been psycho-analysed as "clearly is not suited to run England".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Our high schools have long been designed to provide worker bees, and some argue this is deliberate...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
1. No additional funding to implement this law has been provided to any state (other than some initial "seed money"). 2. Testing of grades 3-8 and 10 is mandatory in all states next year for Math and Reading. Science will be added to some grades after that. 3. It costs Connecticut HUNDREDS of millions of dollars to write, administer, grade, and analyze these tests. 4. Where did President Bush go to school agian? HINT: It wasn't public. Was education broken way back then, or just him?
--Always, I mean never..., No I mean always check your references.--
When parents are supporting their child's lawsuit to not have to do homework, I think it's fairly obvious why today's kids have a hard time developing a work ethic and earning grades.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/9545.html
first on technology, then on television, and then on education...
Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing
Interview by Gary Wolf, Wired Magazine, February 1996.
Rethinking Revolution
What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?
The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.
That's going to break people's hearts.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.
These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.
The Web is going to be very important. Is it going to be a life-changing event for millions of people? No. I mean, maybe. But it's not an assured Yes at this point. And it'll probably creep up on people.
It's certainly not going to be like the first time somebody saw a television. It's certainly not going to be as profound as when someone in Nebraska first heard a radio broadcast. It's not going to be that profound.
Then how will the Web impact our society?
We live in an information economy, but I don't believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It's primarily because of television. People are reading less and they're certainly thinking less. So, I don't see most people using the Web to get more information. We're already in information overload. No matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.
The problem is television?
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
So Steve Jobs is telling us things are going to continue to get worse.
They are getting worse! Everybody knows that they're getting worse! Don't you think they're getting worse?
I do, but I was hoping I could come here and find out how they were going to get better. Do you really believe that the world is getting worse? Or do you have a feeling that the things you're involved with are making the world better?
No. The world's getting worse. It has gotten worse for the last 15 years or so. Definitely. For two reasons. On a global scale, the population is increasing dramatically and all our structures, from ecological to economic to political, just cannot deal with it. And in this country, we seem to have fewer smart people in government, and people don't seem to be paying as much attention to the important decisions we have to make.
But you seem very optimistic about the potential for change.
I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honourable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better
Anyone who has studied revolutions will know it takes a number of factors to dramatically change the old way of doing things. I am of the opinion that no one will be able to change the state of our education system because it would take a massive societal level change to happen. We are currently going through a revolution in information but we have let the direction of that revolution slip out of our hands. I remember Francis Fukuyama saying in his book 'The Great Disruption' that societies generally sort their social and cultural structures out on their own. Look around you right now in society. The factors that make revolutions happen are falling into the hands of people that don't give a fuck about education at all. Some of the big factors are the following:
Technology: This is in the hands of the big corporations and the military/industrial complex. Open source technology is trying to counter it but look at the propaganda and legal issues against the open source movement. It won't happen cause money is power and the people with power want to keep the status quo.
Organisational Aspects: Look at organisations everywhere from schools to big business, they are hopelessly run with pathetic jungles of bureaucracy controlling them with little room for operational innovation. There is little room for change and change is enforced by those in power.
Culture: A societies culture is probably the biggest factor. Look at our culture. It's a culture dedicated to trivial nonsense. Historian John Ralston Saul once stated that we have become a society of answers (as is evident in pop-culture trivia shows and human tendency to break our world up into the answers of liberal and conservative politics) what will change our society is not one dedicated to answers but to questions. Questions demand hard thinking but quality questions get quality answers. Our culture is slowly evolving into a bunch of slobified arrogant no-nothings who want easy answers without the hard thinking.
Leadership: Look at leaders all around you. Our leaders are pathetic payed-off knuckle draggers who hate education because they realise it gives people an ability to question the system they are in.
To change all of the above you would have to make massive action against everything society stands for and it won't happen. People with the money won't let it happen. A possible way around this is to change the perception of those in power from one of 'school is a assembly line mentality' to a 'school can give us a money and information edge'. However I am of the opinion it is too late and the wheels are in action. You think change is hard during a massive societal upheaval like the info revolution that is happening right now? Wait till the system is in place. You'll never fucking change it.
There should be 2 types of colleges. One is the knowldge based or traditional college. The other should be the practical or occupational college that helps get you a career. I'd like to see the 2 be 1 but I doubt it. Some colleges are too traditional and doesn't provide occupational education as they should.
How many go through life without ever learning?
Why is it that school teaches so little about physiology, exercise and good nutrition? How many will have no clue how to stay limber and healthy and are well on the way to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and an eventual early grave? How many will question what they consume?
Why is it that school teaches so little about psychology and mental health? How many will have no clue about mental health, socialization, how their minds operate and how they as individuals interact with society at large? How many will have midlife crisis'? Or never realize they are neurotic in some way (workaholic, shopaholic, alcoholic, obsessive, compulsive, over-acheivers, self-obsessed, living under false personas, hiding in pseudo-communities, etc.)? How many will have little ability to manage life's stresses? How many will people go through life never questioning why they bust their asses for what might turn out to be trivialities?
How many will go through life understanding so little about currents issues, real politics, real economics; and all that that falls under the broad category of "culture"? How many will ever question their world views? Or the views of those around them? How many will *settle* for a world view ("I've got it all figured out") because it is comfortable and safe (like most religious doctrines, political ideologies, philosophical positions) -- despite its many unreconcilable contradictions?
What's that? This is not what the "Education System" should be about!?!? This sort of learning will not make you a "productive member of society"!?!?
How many "productive members of society" pretend to ignore *all* people asking for money on the street under the blanket category as "bums"? Probably the same people who would step over me on the sidewalk because I happened to have a dizzy spell faint on the street. Or the same people who, in a fit of road rage, forget that behind that there are real people behind the CRT-like windshields who actually suffer when you hit them with your car? Isn't it funny that those with the most expensive cars are often the most wreckless drivers, tend to bud in line, and always in a hurry. I guess they figure that because they make more money than me they are more "productive" members of society. Silly me, I'm being forgetful again. Their selfless contribution to the GDP will eventual trickle down to my benefit.
Pssst...Don't tell Bill!
==========
If your machine might slip a gear
Push this button to help it clear
Your time card says your name's Joe
But we'll call you 6-3-0 -- DK
==========
-Me
This is the sort of problem you get when you are surrounded by people who always tell you that you are right. The same applies to RMS and making up new definitions for existing words.
maybe we should start using decent software.
Bill Gates is right because what he is at core is someone who makes an institution work. Completely serious, they should appoint him to run the USDE.
If anyone had an ounce of sense this is what be done. He is supremely gifted at institutionalising a concept.
Which is exactly and precisely why MS CORP is exempt from fee market economics and now, basically, has next-to-nothing to do with computing.
Bill baby needs a new job that is appropriate to his gift. Bill - get out of computing and leave it to those of us who work in the free market, and put yourself to work running the USDE. The first thing he should do at the USDE is fire about 1,000 people. The second thing he should do is appoint Tom Ridge to run the bar-b-que pit.
I am: uplink@indiatimes.com
a goofy veiled email address for a Real American.
Read it and Weep and then Go Do It.
Not as uncommon nowadays as you think -- this happened to me fairly often in school also, and I went through normal public education. The real killer of this otherwise good idea is records-privacy laws, which consider grades to be educational records; now it could get teachers in trouble if they let any other students know your grade.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Back when I was in university, I calculated out how much of a first-year student's tuition actually goes into teaching them. The total funding to the average lecturerer was half the cost of the textbook. When you're at university, the courses are only a tiny fraction of what your supposed to be getting for your money. The trouble is that the courses are the only thing you get marked on until you reach the real world. (it's easy to get caught in manager-think as a student: I'm measured on X, therefore X is the only thing that's important)
I find this all funny coming from a guy who dropped out of college years ago? OH well what does he think every child in America is as motivated and smart as he is? Come on now we know most high school students are losers.
--- hows it taste mother f$#@er!!!
this from a man who has stolen and lied more than the american people care to know ?
i'm sorry, exactly what does the greatest thief and liar the western world has ever seen have to say about what teenagers should learn in high school ?
morals ?
honesty ?
taking an oath in a court and actually telling the truth ?
that's three failing grades, mr. gates...
There's an old saying: Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach how to fish and feed him forever.
Teach someone how to learn and research for themsleves and they are better equiped to adapt to the ever changing world we live in.
Education should be inspiring, it doesn't need to be vocational until the kids have a chance to consider what they might like to do when they leave school. And even then it shouldn't box them in to such a degree that they can't consider changing vocations if they wish.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
That's the best quote I've heard in ages.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Intelligence != Wisdom
Smart != Educated
You can have smart people who have never been exsposed to higher education, you can have not-so-smart people who have been smothered in education and are dilligent, but struggle.
If the education system simply taught people the possibility that they could learn something they don't already know that would be an improvement.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
OTOH Pigs might fly.
That William Gates fellow should be appointed "Presidential Adviser on Education", IOW what the rest of the World would call a Minister of Education. For the first time ever, I actually agree 100% with what he says. Amazing, utterly amazing!
Inertia and Convenience.
I see you are from Florida... I went all of my school years there including 2 years of community college in Orlando and now I am about to grad with my BS from the Nashville area.
.02
Anyway, I lived in Seminole County who had the second largest budget (per capita I think) except for Palm Beach County. I remember thinking how bad my education sucked and how little I learned. Then I went to Valencia CC (one of the best CCs in the US) in Orlando and in my first few classes I quickly realized I was one of the most educated people around. To this day I still sit back and think about how crummy my education was and yet I got one of the highest quality educations in the state.... utterly amazing.
And about the FCAT - yeah I grad HS in 2000 and we had the HSCTs (High School Compentency Test). They were a pain in the ass and a waste of time to me. The teachers were forced to take like 20 minutes every day to give a practice test and then "teach the test" to the class.
A lot of people had problems with the teachers "teaching the test" in order for the students to be able to pass it. However, the trick to that is that if important material (math, basic sci, basic reasoning, logic, etc) was put on the test, at least some of it would get taught to the students.
Just my
Libertas in infinitum
Probably the worst assumption you've made is that the global population will continue to grow at it's present rate. This is not true for a number of reasons. First of all, the current rate of growth is slowing. Most actuaries that study this kind of thing think the global population will level off around 10 billion. Second of all, as a nation becomes more industrialized, it's birth rate drops. In Western Europe and Japan, the birth rate is not high enough to replace older people as they die. In the US, the birth rate is higher, but only barely to the point there is growth.
Another bad assumption is that the number of jobs available is static. Typically the number of jobs grows in proportion to population (the more people there are, the more work there is to do). Amazingly, this has continued to be true through both the industrial and the information revolutions. The thinking is simple enough, as machines replace people, there are fewer jobs to go around. Of course, the use of machines lowers the relative cost of living (by increasing efficiency) and as a result there is more room for the service sector (which people could not afford before).
I've already touched on this, the the third bad assumption is that the relative cost of living is static. This is not true, as technology increases efficiency, the relative cost of living decreases (an individual requires fewer resources to sustain him/herself). The result is that people need to do less work to sustain themselves, and there is more room for people in secondary professions (services) as fewer people are needed to work in industry and agriculture.
I've long said that the western Education system needs an overhaul, that University needs to be relegated back to being the place for MDs, Lawyers and Engineers, that trades/appreticeships need to be given more legitimacy and pride, and so on.
But three simple course additions to the current system would improve things, I think: logic, debate, Latin.
Logic: So many kids going through public school actually knows how to think anymore. Elementary logic simply is NOT being taught.
Debate: See above, then tack on that so many people seem unable to actually discuss or debate a difference of opinion; only to state theirs, then attack viciously anybody who disagrees.
Latin: Mainly I think this would help produce better English speakers. Hard to think and debate when you can barely speak the language correctly.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
As a graduate from a high school in Kentucky where our school was required to get successively higher scores on the KIRIS test due to the Kentucky Education Reform Act, I personally feel that the government shouldn't ever become too intimately involved in how to set up an education. It seems like every time they do, they just cause more trouble.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I think this article you mention was written by the same Gary North who, back in 1999, went on the Art Bell show and told everyone that Y2K would bring chaos and anarchy.
"Additionally, teaching methods are very outdated. There hasn't been significant change and improvement in teaching methods for 50 years. "
I think teaching methods 50 years ago were more successful. The need to improve upon something that was working well enough, may have contributed to the problem. Memorization is an important part of learning. How do I teach Latin or French to students who don't want to memorize the vocabulary or rules of grammar? Or history to those who think that memorizing certain events and dates is unimportant? Knowing the times and places of these events provides a mental framework within which other historical events can be interpretted.
I think a return to disciplined education, as was practiced in 1955 by most American schools, is a necessity. But when I say "disciplined" I don't mean conformity to rules that are unrelated to learning, e.g. school uniforms, regulation haircuts. I mean eliminating grade inflation, requiring homework sufficient to learn the subject matter, and holding students responsible for the knowledge that we expect them to acquire.
Every child in America should be able to use Windows and look up things in the Microsoft encyclopedia and write in Microsoft word and make pictures in Microsoft publisher. All children should be shipped to Seattle for serious training the Microsoft way.
To an Engineering or Computer Science course?
No wonder most projects are over budget and never delivered on time.
The subjects are relevant, the students think they know better and ignore them at their (and their futures employers, costumers) own peril.
That is fine because students are mostly stupid and go to HS or college to try so mend that problem.
The incredible thing is that somebody with professional experience can't grasp the importance of other subjects that in appeareance are not linked ot his main field of expertise.
But again, the opinion of somebody ranting about Economics as an example of a "filler" subject should be not taken necessary very seriously.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
People here very often write in a hurry and do not necessarily have English as their first language.
To make fun of that is frankly passe.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How did you learn to talk?
/.ers have this delussion that because they can learn a computer language on their own (and surely they learned all the basics by themselves) then anybody can learn anything without the nuisance of a person that has been ther, done that and got the loussy T-shirt.
/.ers are just a bunch of extreme anarchists in disguise.
To go to the toilet?
To behave in public?
To read?
Now, make my day, say that you learned it on your own.
Teaching is the most basic way of passing knowledge between humans. the dissemination of knowledge suffers where smart crack asses think they can learn everything for themselves without realizing they are reinvinting the fucking wheel.
But such attitude against teaching does not surprise me in the slightiest, many
Sometimes I wonder if
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You are going to the extreme situation of a new field with no teachers to ascert that teaching is not the best method to pass knowledge.
This is patently a devious way of interpret things.
If there is no knowledge to ba passed, and no teachers to teach anything, obviously teaching is of no use, so basicaly you are stating the obvious, thanks for nothing.
If there is knowledge to be transmitted, then learning on your own is time consuming and inneficient. It may appear more interesting, but nothing beats to have somebody that can put you on track in your pursuit of knowledge, that is if you want to do it in the most efficient manner.
If you want to generate new knowledge, by all means do, but surely you will be standing in the shoulders of somebody that thought something that is allowing you to move forward.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Parents are not necessarily teachers and may not have the skills to teach.
Parents may sorely lack knowledge about many subjects.
The emotional involvement may stop parents identifying educational problems that may be picked up by a trained teacher.
Will parents teach controversial subjects at home or will they reinforce prejudices?
And so on and so forth.
Home schooling may be an alternative, and all the power to whoever chooses that for their children, but it is by no means a perfect or superior solution, to mantain so is completely disingineous.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And who will tell them what books may be interesting? No teahcers, you se, I hope at least you allow for a librarian, or is such a person also protecting his "cushy" well paid job?
And in the Internet? Joe Bigdick at http://www.sexestatisc.com?
Young people need guidance for a good reason: they are inexperienced and ignorant. You are asking the blind to guide the blind, the dumb to instruct the dumber.
Who are you? The spirit of Mao Ze Dong or the Unabomber?
And as for teachers having cushy, well-paid jobs, you should frankly apologize for liyng in public. What a lack of decency.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is people like you, deriding others, diminishing their achievements, that makes today's brute society such an asfixiating place to live.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Look, glad that it worked for you. Or maybe it did not, the last sentence leaves enormous gulfs of perceived doubt.
But frankly this quixotic idealization you make of such way ot teaching children is puerile. on extreme.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In reply to the umpteen posts arguing that courses unrelated to your specialty are useful, I say this:
Yes, they are useful and valuable.
No, I shouldn't *have* to spend 30,000 out of my 40,000 student loan on unrelated courses so I can get a degree that says I took the other 10,000 worth of courses.
At this rate, I will explicitly discourage my children from going to college, because it's not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. Learn your job on the job, learn your language and culture and classical literature because you want to, and don't be stuck in debt till you're 40. Life is to be lived, and we all seem to be losing track of that. We're all more interested in how much we can borrow and how long we can take to pay it back. In almost all cases, I'd rather go without rather than suffer years of debt.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
That said, your post clearly fits the definition of a troll because it adds nothing to the discussion
That's not what "troll" means. Please log off the internet now.
Your continued exploration (?) of this theme in your latest post
Look at the part where it says "by." I'm not who you think I am. Please log off the internet now.
why don't you post with your real nick
What's a "nick?" Did you typo "dick?" I don't understand what "post with your real dick" means. I guess I could try typing with it, but that would be the worst kind of hunt-and-peck, wouldn't it?
how wrong I am I so malign you?
That wasn't even English.
Please log off the internet now.
The full text of Gates' speech is available on the website of the 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools.
More info is also at Achieve.org, including an Action Agenda.
From TFA: Of every 100 ninth-graders, only 68 graduate high school on time and only 18 make it through college on time . . . See National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Are you _kidding_ me?!
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)