• Should Education be Compulsory, and if so, What Age Should It Be Set?
    38 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Kentz;43493266]why is it important that the government decides that you must learn and also what you learn & how do you [I]ethically[/I] defend that you somehow have the right to decide the faiths - again, through coercion - of other peoples lives by using the government as a tool to make others obey?[/QUOTE] Because people need to learn. It's bad enough that there is a skills deficit in people who drop out of school early to follow apprenticeships and traineeships ([url]http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/01/08/illiteracy-among-apprentices-sparks-skills-shortage[/url]), but it would be so much worse if there was no requirement to schooling. Even if people had to stay and finish primary school (K-6) until they could leave, you'd have people leaving school and their most advanced knowledge in Maths would probsbly be their times tables up to 12. Which would be absolutely pathetic. I'm not understanding that second sentence, you didn't word it very well. Are you implying that schooling is a method of coercion in raising the populace to obey (obey what?)? I completely disagree. An educated population would be less likely to blindly obey any authority than an uneducated population, and as we know, societies that have practiced anti-intellectualism include Nazi Germany and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, where people were murdered simply for wearing glasses (a sign of intellect).
[QUOTE=Kentz;43465779]nothing is ever beneficial to "humanity" if it's forced. Be it schools or whatever. The reason its forced is because it serves those in power, not those whom are exposed to it. Public schools can cause massive damage to a childs motivation. [B]Many children has a very clear idea of what they want to do[/B], and its very discouraging to them when they have to do a bunch of assignments they 1. Dislike, and in some cases, 2. Isn't actually useful at all. And if they do not do these assignments they are in the end punished for it and may not be able to follow their dreams..[/QUOTE] What, like becoming an astronaut or racecar driver? When a child is at that young and impressionable age, it is an incredibly important stage in their physical and mental development. However, given the choice, a vast amount of children would prefer not to go to school, as they are not yet mature enough to realise the benefits of the classroom. Perhaps I was lucky, but at no point in my life did my schooling feel like a 'prison'. It is true that schools are not the very best way of educating a population, and there will always be schools which do not do a good job of educating their student body. The most ideal solution would probably be for each person to have an individual tutor or even council of people who could guide and shape them into the best possible human being. Obviously this is not viable considering the implications and needs of a system like this, so instead we have what we have. In the big scheme of things, school is a large scale solution to an enormous challenge, that is, providing each new generation of people with the skills they need perform as a functional member of society and bear the responsibilities of adult life. It isn't 100% foolproof, but personally I do not feel that an expensive and long-winded overhaul of our current system is warranted.
[QUOTE=Antdawg;43515991] I'm not understanding that second sentence, you didn't word it very well. Are you implying that schooling is a method of coercion in raising the populace to obey (obey what?)? I completely disagree. An educated population would be less likely to blindly obey any authority than an uneducated population, and as we know, societies that have practiced anti-intellectualism include Nazi Germany and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, where people were murdered simply for wearing glasses (a sign of intellect).[/QUOTE] Thinking about it logically, it's clear that the intentions of the school are not for the wellbeing of pupils, but of that for the economy. Look at mathematics, specifically - that is not required beyond addition and subtraction in day to day life. Why else would it be required, other than to coerce pupils into a job that will gain the government more money?
[QUOTE=Irockz;43522785]Thinking about it logically, it's clear that the intentions of the school are not for the wellbeing of pupils, but of that for the economy. Look at mathematics, specifically - that is not required beyond addition and subtraction in day to day life. Why else would it be required, other than to coerce pupils into a job that will gain the government more money?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=hexpunK;43453965]Understanding maths to a greater degree is useful for managing your finances, amongst other things.[/QUOTE] I think this idea that subjects which teach skills that aren't used in day-to-day life are merely a tool of the government to turn as all into slaves for their coffers, is a little paranoid. Regardless, so what if the only reason we are taught skills is to bring more money into our country's economy? Does that not mean higher wages on the individual level as well?
[QUOTE=Irockz;43522785]Thinking about it logically, it's clear that the intentions of the school are not for the wellbeing of pupils, but of that for the economy. Look at mathematics, specifically - that is not required beyond addition and subtraction in day to day life. Why else would it be required, other than to coerce pupils into a job that will gain the government more money?[/QUOTE] You seem to forget that a government is a collection of people, rather than some god-entity which rules over us all. Education is without a doubt beneficial to humanity as a whole. There is no disputing that.
[QUOTE=bobbleheadbob;43524967]You seem to forget that a government is a collection of people, rather than some god-entity which rules over us all. Education is without a doubt beneficial to humanity as a whole. There is no disputing that.[/QUOTE] Please, don't bring technicalities into this, my point is clear and is not pulled back by what you said. Of course it's beneficial, I didn't deny this, I denied that compulsory public schooling was the correct way to go around doing it.
The whole education system needs an overhaul first. I'd say, retain the basics like mathematics and english, but cut everything else out and replace it with a several-hour class that allows people to explore the range and scope of human achievement, and then later, learn the theory and practical application of whatever they choose to specialise in via moderated self-learning, and specialise in it. That class would start off at maybe 1-2 hours per day and then grow to 5-6 hours a day. And then yes, it should be.
I can't imagine how someone can say "Nah, no need for compulsary education". the world as we know it simply wouldn't function as people really wouldn't feel the need to get all that much school as they never learn the purpose of schooling from being in school itself. However, that being said, common education techniques today are failing left and right. There's a lot of reasons for this but some major ones are; class sizes, teacher tenure, school day length, and standardized tests. Classes NEED to be scaled down. Students of all ages and all types are going to need more interaction with teachers for more beneficial schooling. What this means in a lot of ways is we need more teachers and we need more good teachers. We don't want the teachers who teach by and for standardized tests. Teacher tenure plays into point one, through being tenured, teachers are protected from almost all administrative recourse and this can cause a lot of problems as there is no way to really create a retributive environment for bad teachers. Standardized tests are the next point I'd like to tackle as they fold right into teacher tenure. Tenure allows the teachers who only teach the bare minimums to acheive standardized tests scores are a huge problem. Simply removing tests is not going to fix it and simply taking those teachers out won't either. A dual solution is required. Removing or radically changing tenure procedures, and drastically changing what "Standardized" tests mean. They should become general markers for where a student is in their education. It would not be about "Get this score to prove you learned the subjects in shoddy manners". The standardized tests in this new model would basically just be there to mark where the students are progressing, evaluators rather than hardline tests. The individual attention by teachers can then be applied in the right areas for these students. School days are also a problem, though I can't find the study I'm basing this off of right now, IIRC, the study points out how 8 hour school days in conjuction with summer breaks cause students to cram information in, then blank it out over a long break. A way to counteract this would be to make school more pervasive, allowing week long or fortnight breaks but overall shorter days, and more of them around the year. This seems like a better solution in my eyes as it wouldn't allow so much mental atrophy of students and it wouldn't require them to cram nearly as much information in short time periods.
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