Underground History - American Education

[MikeL]

Discovered this thread late - perhaps just as well, considering I've spent a lifetime in education and am an opinionated old bastard to boot. Won't bore you with all the observations I could make. Just a few things at random:

Dumbing down: is real. My professional opinion is that in the last 25 years the devaluation equates to about 2 years' schooling. That is, a Year 13 (Form 7) student today works at about the level of a fifth-former back then. Stage 3 university papers are roughly equivalent to first-year courses 25 years ago.

NCEA: an abomination. Even though the principle might be laudable, some of us warned years ago that it wouldn't work. It hasn't. It doesn't. It has advanced the careers and lined the pockets of large numbers of ambitious bureaucrats on fixed-term contracts who didn't and don't give a damn about the long-term consequences.

Teachers: a threatened species. At least the good ones. The training colleges were hijacked by the PC warm-fuzzy touch-feely brigade years ago. Then it became a competitive, bums-on-seats free-for-all in which depth and breadth of subject knowledge was far less important than ability and willingness to shell out several thousand dollars in fees. All the competent secondary teachers are now nearing retirement. They spend all their time trying to patch up the deficiences caused by their primary colleagues (who have had a very cosy pay parity deal with secondary teachers despite the fact that manifestly they are not doing an equivalent job). When the last of the old ones retire (and an awful lot of them have already taken early retirement directly because of NCEA), who will be teaching our children? Trendy, shallow twenty-something-year-olds with a B.Ed degree they might just as well have cut off the back of a Weetbix box, and whose enthusiasm and empathy will rapidly disappear after a couple of years at the chalkface, whereupon they will bugger off to greener and more lucrative pastures.

Whom to blame? David Lange. Much and all as I admire the man for his wit and humanity, he allowed himself to be persuaded to bring in Tomorrow's Schools (whether he was deluded or just didn't do his homework I can't say) which behind the beguiling promise of freedom of choice and an end to the dead hand of central bureaucracy turned education into a business, us into "clients" and our children into guinea-pigs.

Moral of the story: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It wasn't broken then (a bit of fine-tuning would have sufficed), but it is now.

End of rant.

[Mongoose]

Well said Mike. I was one of the experiments in the maths of the day, "New Maths". What a load of bollocks that was, give me normal maths and no problem but that other crap that they past off as maths Pffffft

[Holy Roller]

And not a 'true' home schooler, perhaps.

Most homeschooled kids are sent to school for their highschool years as the parents don't think that they can educate their children at the higher level. Starting homeschooling at highschool level perhaps makes you more of a true homeschooler.
My wife and I have homeschooled our 5 children right through so far. The oldest is 17 and youngest is 10. Personally I think that the higschool years are easier as the students are mainly self taught and require little intervention from us. My youngest son is by no means academic and would rather spend the day on his skate board or shooting hoops. In the class room he would have been labled as so many are these days, but lately there has been some very encouraging advances in his study. Some kids just take a bit longer than others unfortunatley the system does not allow for this kind of deviation in learning.
NCEA: don't get me going, even our kids can see the stupidity of the system. Learning in bite size chunks from many different sources to gain the required credits nolonger gives the continuity of learning that promotes longterm education. Anyway education has no reference in the MOE propaganda it is being taught without the reference of having to had learnt anything. Could this be part of the socialist agenda to dumb down our future leaders. A worrying trend amoung our so called top schools is the underacheiving at the Cambridge International Exams, so schools are opting not to enrole students in these exams. Homeschoolers who enrole tend to do well at these exams.
All kids are not going to be rocket scientists but with homeschooling the education gained through matching the subjects to the skill base and interests of the kids is more than just being taught. This not to cause disrespect to teachers in the system as many of them do an exceptional job given the conditions they have to face.
Homeschooling is not for everyone, but those who opt for this lifestyle find it very rewarding.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Could this be part of the socialist agenda to dumb down our future leaders.

Que? ?? ??

[Holy Roller]

Que? ?? ??

Past socialist political movements had a tendancy to suppress the dreamers and thinkers who may have been a challenge to the future leadership.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Fairy nuff then..... I dont think that equates to dumbing down though - rather a tenuous link.

[Ricamortise]

Things were fine until we moved to Tauranga, and middle son had 12 teachers in less than a year, and all hell broke lose. Eventually, he was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, and we went "Ahhhhh... so that's why he's like he is."

Did this occur at?

My 'Flatmates' son has had , er is having problems directly related to
his schooling, he has not been able to attend college since a devastating
incident that occurred around Easter of this year. We think this is largely
related to course content and politically correct teachings.

In his specific case there are several other factors relevant which I won't discuss here, apart from the reluctance of the medical profession to
apply a label to his particular malaise.

[Mongoose]

MikeL

Interesting arcticle in the Saturdays Otago Daily Times by an Ass. Prof Howard Lee, saying a very simular thing to you. He says students are being used as guineapigs in "a bold and riskey experiment"
"With the fragmented way NCEA broke subjects into little bits, it was no wonder that pupils were doing intenational qualifications such as the Cambridge International Examinations.
And so it goes on.
Cheers

[moko]

I`ve seen mates struggle helping their kids do maths homework here.The problem isn`t the maths it`s the fact that the kids have to use some weirdarse methods that apparently are new and very trendy.More than once these kids have had help from their parents,like them they find the "old" ways easier,only to get bollocked because it`s "done the wrong way".surely in an equation or whatever the correct result is the required thing however it`s done.These parents aren`t cutting corners merely showing the kids how they were taught before some clown decided that it was no longer good enough.Reading is the same,smart new idea proved disasterous so after putting kids all over the coutry way behind the standards they should be attaining finally "the old way" was seen to have nothing wrong with it.History is a joke,current curriculum picks out topics with a PC message and ignores the rest so you get kids getting good qualifications on the basis of their knowledge of the evils of the slave trade,gay rights e.t.c. while they cant give you for example a quick run-through of the history of Britain since Roman times which tells how we got to where we are today.Worse yet the EU in their infinate wisdom(big joke) are pushing really hard for memeber countries to start calling WW2 "the European Civil War",would be funny if re-writing history didn`t have such ominous overtones.
Our A-levels were once a good qualification but are now so degraded by constant political tampering so the government can claim ever-increasing educational standards that no-one gives them any credibiblty anymore.The worse bit about that is that thousands of young people bust a gut to achieve something and basically they`ve wasted their time,a kick in the teeth isn`t the ideal introduction to the big,bad world is it?
Bullying?It works like this.The government cracked down hard on bullying so hard that ironically schools find it easier to ignore it than report it and have Govt.Inspectors giving them a hard time.Sadly most people dont realise that they have clout if only they knew where to go and my local secondary lets little thugs run riot while parents of the affected pupils take their kids elsewhere.As long as they keep walking away that wont change but to be fair if your kid`s getting battered every day then you`re not going to wait around for the school to finally do something after constantly delaying the official process are you?

[SPman]

Worse yet the EU in their infinate wisdom(big joke) are pushing really hard for member countries to start calling WW2 "the European Civil War",would be funny if re-writing history didn`t have such ominous overtones

Would this just happen to be , "the European Civil War", that involved nearly all countries, in all areas of the world, including Europe! (except Spain and Switzerland - maybe its them!)
Twats!

Anyone read "Degree's for Everyone", by Bob Jones. A satirical novel but with an underlying closeness to what appears to be happening in the New Age, learning institutions, going forward!.
quote - “A university degree once held mana; today it is but a badge of attendance. Scholarship has been pushed aside to accommodate the meanest intelligence with nonsense degrees in nonsense subjects and universities are today driven by commercial considerations"

Probably the best degree to get, is a BA in Philosophy and History.- on the face of it totally meaningless and useless, but,(unless these subjects have been minimalised as well), it should produce a graduate who can think, reason and analyse, and apply these traits to all areas of life and work - because, lets face it, even once you"ve got your degree, diploma, etc, you've still got to go out into the workforce and learn how to do your job.

[Lou Girardin]

So true, Mike L. Ask any under 30's to spell, do mental arithmetic or damn near anything we took to be normal schooling all those years ago.
A recent study also showed NZ students to be lagging compared to other OECD countries in academic subjects; though they do well in arty farty things, such as expressing themselves. Which is fine, as long as the recipient can read text.
Still, I think it's great. It makes our generation look like geniuses.

[jrandom]

Ask any under 30's to spell...

AHEM!



A little more respect for us young 'uns would be in order, you crusty old bugger.

[Ghost Lemur]

AHEM!



A little more respect for us young 'uns would be in order, you crusty old bugger.

'ere 'ere

*Thanks his lucky stars he's still an under 30 for a couple of years*

[MikeL]

AHEM!



A little more respect for us young 'uns would be in order, you crusty old bugger.

Quite right. Rather than a sweeping generalization, Lou should have quoted a plausible pseudo-statistic:

"According to some recent research 98.7% of under 30 year olds can't spell 'facetious'..."

But to be honest, JR, you are exceptional. I presume you went to a private school...?

[vifferman]

Sorry guys - bit touchy eh? the obnoxious sod was a dig at myself - we are all busy bodies at heart.

No, Motu - not at all. It was merely a case of "If the cap fits, wear it."
I seem to pop up all over the place, commenting on all sorts of things, sometimes from a point of ignorance. I just like to be involved, but sometimes wonder if I come across as a smartass, jackass, or any other sort of ass.