Principia Discordia

This is mostly a laundry list of things I've identified as set ups that keep people hooked up to the machine.  They may or may not be anything original in it, mostly trying to collect my thoughts and get people to point out anything I've missed.

The money game, the idea that more money (above and beyond what you actually need)=better.  One of the stronger traps, as most people only manage to get it by being 100% in tune with the machine.  Corporate drones and artistic sellouts.

Conformist rebellion.  Corporate driven subculture, relatively weak trap, keeps people feeding money into the machine, and marks potential troublemakers as outcasts, preventing them from doing any real damage.

Groupthink counterculture.  Political and ideological movements, usually very conformist in goals, in the past you'd see a lot of communists and hippies (according to history books anyway, wasn't around then), these days you seem get libertarians.

Politics, in general.  I think it was the BIP, might have been a forum post here, talked about politics forcing you to choose between freedoms.  Somewhere I have a chart done up of mindsets in a large political forum, showed a very hard line trend towards this kind of thinking.  The two politicians you get to choose from tend to be minimally different outside of key issues as well.

The popularity contest.  All the good cogs in the machine are expected to act in a certain way so everybody will like them.  Caring what other people think, simply for the sake of being liked, seems a fast track to giving up your will to the machine.

entertainment, in general.  TV, alcohol, sex, music, video games, drugs, anything to distract the masses from looking at their plight.  And keep them spending of course.  Trickier one to get ahold than the others, not dangerous in moderation, and not clean cut either, some entertainment can serve to try and wake people up from a cabbage state.  Need not actually be created by the machine.

Religion, in general.  established religion is pretty obvious.  fringe religion is a poor means of control, but seems to at least serve as a distraction.

anybody have anything I missed?

Hope.

coyote

Human Nature

Tribes/territorialism.

Moving from physical territory to mental/emotional/idealistic territory.


People acting like monkeys.

(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/images/050719_monkeys.jpg)

I completely forgot about conspiracy theories.  Can't really see the machine if you think a shadow government or a bunch of guys with skull rings is doing it all.

Monkeys acting like people. :lulz:

"self preservation" as a justification

What about the illusion of safety?

I found one. It's the School system.

The machine grades its beef by making it perform. If you're incapable of making the grade, you're marked for nothing important in life. If you make the grade and do what they tell you, you succeed, but along their guidelines. If, however, you don't follow the rules but show high intelligence? You're labeled a wild card. They target you for induction into the machine so you don't become another loose bolt getting stuck in the gearheads, messing up the design...

Quote from: TheLastLump on February 23, 2008, 05:33:32 AM
I found one. It's the School system.

The machine grades its beef by making it perform. If you're incapable of making the grade, you're marked for nothing important in life. If you make the grade and do what they tell you, you succeed, but along their guidelines. If, however, you don't follow the rules but show high intelligence? You're labeled a wild card. They target you for induction into the machine so you don't become another loose bolt getting stuck in the gearheads, messing up the design...

True, but not as true as it used to be. These days many of the most "successful" people were pegged by the schooling system as failures. I might be hopelessly optimistic in thinking so, but I believe the whole monster machine of schooling in the Western world is on the brink of collapse. I believe it will be sudden, but that it is inevitable.

(On the other hand, I have been known to be a fanatic supporter of Sudbury schools, so feel free to ignore me on this one.)

True, but the school system still makes it harder to rise if you fail to do anything and everything they ask you, regardless of how irrelevent it is. Still, I wouldn't be the rebel I am today if it wasn't for the Jungle that was school...

The school sysytem is like a big cog production facility. It gets you ready for a whole life of turning in the Machine. What Lumpy says is true, however, I never wouldn't have found the BIP if it wasn't for school.

Schools are definitely part of the machine. The school system isn't about giving you the skills you need to work. It's about socializing you so that you'll fit in at the workplace. A high school, bachelors, masters degree represents that you're willing to jump through that many hoops. The reason it's such a big part of the machine is that by participating, you just make it more real. Since nearly everyone in this country graduates from High School, it seems very very important to do so. I've known many high school drop outs who went on to be very successful... but they all speak about how they had to overcome people's initial misgivings.

And yet, very few people on this site would reccomend a person not go to school.

Please see the "choose where I go to college" thread in AppleTalk.

I think a school or university CAN be a part of the Machine.  It certainly is a device that lends itself to that sort of thing.  And it's by design of course.  In a way a school is a lot like an assembly line.  They both have to "process" a lot of material at once.  When you have schools with 1000 or more kids, the tendency for that system is going to be one of homogenization. 

HOWEVER, teachers and instructors are the variable that can really determine how Machine-like the education institute really is.  Of course, the other important variable is the individual kids themselves.  If you have teachers that go beyond the state-sanctioned curriculum, who don't simply have a teach-by-numbers approach, kids will have a good shot at coming out with themselves still intact. 

Indeed.  At college, the student body was split into several parts I have identified just 5 minutes ago:  Those that treated it like a trade/vo-tech school, those that treated it like a way to learn about weird shit they will probably never use, and those that treated it like a 4-year vacation from reality.


I chose doors 2 and 3.  To be quite honest, I should have at least peeked into door 1.

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on February 25, 2008, 02:51:31 PMSchools are definitely part of the machine. The school system isn't about giving you the skills you need to work. It's about socializing you so that you'll fit in at the workplace. A high school, bachelors, masters degree represents that you're willing to jump through that many hoops.

uhm what??

i got a high school and a bachelors degree, i'm still working on my masters, and i got those pieces of paper because i know a lot of stuff, not because i jumped through hoops.

okay, for the most part i wasn't even consciously awake, until a couple of years before i got my bachelors.

i don't know about "skills needed to work", because it's pretty obvious i don't have those either, but to call it jumping through hoops, i just dropped things i didn't care about as much, quick and soon as possible. finally got my highschool diploma with just Dutch, English (those 2 were mandatory), Math A (easy, vectors, probability etc), Math B (harder, integrals, trig, etc), Physics, Chemistry and Biology. then went on to university and mess around with computer programming and moar math. please point out the part where i was jumping through hoops instead of learning stuff i am interested in.

Quoteplease point out the part where i was jumping through hoops instead of learning stuff i am interested in.

I did not say it was either you're learning OR you're jumping through hoops. You can be learning stuff that you're interested in WHILE you're doing all the song and dance required to get your degree. In the end, your degree is not based on the skills you learned, but the number of credits you have, etc.

That's why when you apply for a job, the employer looks at the degree, and uses that as a thumbnail for how hard of a worker you'll be. Most jobs do not expect that when you're hired, you already know how to do your job. Employers expect that you'll learn that stuff as you go.

I learned skills in college which are useful to me no matter what my job is, but I certainly didn't take any college courses on doing clinical research or editing textbooks!

Quotei got a high school and a bachelors degree, i'm still working on my masters, and i got those pieces of paper because i know a lot of stuff, not because i jumped through hoops.

I disagree. You learned a lot of stuff in the process, but in the end you have the degree because you took X number of credits, you did your homework, you showed up for exams, and you generally did what the professor asked. You couldn't get the degree unless you were willing to "do what it takes" to get that degree.

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on February 25, 2008, 11:47:07 PM

Quoteplease point out the part where i was jumping through hoops instead of learning stuff i am interested in.

I did not say it was either you're learning OR you're jumping through hoops. You can be learning stuff that you're interested in WHILE you're doing all the song and dance required to get your degree. In the end, your degree is not based on the skills you learned, but the number of credits you have, etc.

except that the credits you have are based on the learning of skills. it is just intended a system for being able to somehow measure a student's progress.

now i probably should agree with you that this system can be crooked as hell, but i am also of the opinion that this is not always the case. for example (and i am aware that this is the case for the dutch system, yours works differently) the credits (ECTS) are supposed to be directly proportional to the amount of work in hours you spend on a course. if this doesn't line up, there will be complaints from the students and the student union will make a huge fuss out of it (which has various degrees of success in solving the problem, but that's another story).

i can go on, but the point is that the system itself is there to facilitate learning skills, not jumping through hoops.

QuoteThat's why when you apply for a job, the employer looks at the degree, and uses that as a thumbnail for how hard of a worker you'll be. Most jobs do not expect that when you're hired, you already know how to do your job. Employers expect that you'll learn that stuff as you go.

I learned skills in college which are useful to me no matter what my job is, but I certainly didn't take any college courses on doing clinical research or editing textbooks!

i guess i'm just lucky to be studying something that actually allows me to get a job in the area i studied for. although even when i get a job in IT, i don't think i'll be using more than 20% of the stuff i learned. although.. some courses build on eachother, it's hard to give an exact figure :) it's also quite impossible to even think of a job that would include the full curriculum of a 5-year study Computer Science :)

Quote

Quotei got a high school and a bachelors degree, i'm still working on my masters, and i got those pieces of paper because i know a lot of stuff, not because i jumped through hoops.

I disagree. You learned a lot of stuff in the process, but in the end you have the degree because you took X number of credits, you did your homework, you showed up for exams, and you generally did what the professor asked. You couldn't get the degree unless you were willing to "do what it takes" to get that degree

that's like saying i'm jumping through hoops when i'm making my breakfast. cause i "do what it takes" to get that breakfast.

also, in most cases, with the courses i did, "doing what it takes [to pass the course]" corresponded pretty good with "doing what is takes [to learn the skill taught in that course]".
sure, if i were to be left to my own devices, i'd probably have taken a different road to learn those skills, but it's a balance between having a professor teach you things (they are useful, afterall) and doing everything on your own. there's not enough professors around to give everybody individual attention.

and, maybe even more importantly, if it wasn't for the system of homework, learning for exams etc, i might have thought "ah fuck it" and never even learned those skills in the first place! you may rightly call that jumping through hoops, if you like, but i found that subjecting myself to a littlebit of discipline can help me go that little extra mile.
the best example of this might be the course on Software Engineering, i absolutely hated it, was in fact a lot more "jumping through hoops" if you want, than most other courses. and you know? afterwards, this is probably the single most important course i have followed in my study years, as it will be *very* relevant to pretty much every IT job i might ever apply for. [and after having found that it's actually useful, i like the subject better, too]

How much hoop jumping is going to vary based on the school and class.  IE, one college I looked at was going to make me take biology.  Or you can have a class with a curriculum that has nothing to do with the course in question, it was common in classes at the uni I went to for professors to require community service time.  Occaisionaly this made sense (enviornmental sciences, spend time helping recycling projects) other times the classes marjked as such made no sense at all.

If we are all part of the Machine, isn't everything a trap/not a trap of the Machine?

Quote from: Requiem on February 26, 2008, 06:19:18 PMHow much hoop jumping is going to vary based on the school and class.  IE, one college I looked at was going to make me take biology.  Or you can have a class with a curriculum that has nothing to do with the course in question, it was common in classes at the uni I went to for professors to require community service time.  Occaisionaly this made sense (enviornmental sciences, spend time helping recycling projects) other times the classes marjked as such made no sense at all.

yes i agree that this is often the case, but the point is, the school system isn't meant to be like that, it's meant to sort of work like what i wrote in the above post. my mum is some sort of high staff member whose job it is to "improve quality" [her job has no real name], currently at a cooperation of highschools, to make sure that schools are about learning skills that indeed prepare people for the work market, but not in the "sneaky" way as is suggested in this thread.

it's just that, as we all know, that big bureaucratic systems often don't work the way they're intended to work. and often do so in a very de-humanizing way.

de-humanizing. i think that's a key word in describing teh machine.

I have to disagree about what the school system is for. The school system is a self-preserving machine. It no longer serves the goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, but instead manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on exitsting. It is a vicious runaway factory utilizing society to maintain its existence.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 27, 2008, 12:39:57 AM
I have to disagree about what the school system is for. The school system is a self-preserving machine. It no longer serves the goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, but instead manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on exitsting. It is a vicious runaway factory utilizing society to maintain its existence.

Yes, that's pretty much my observation, about public k-12 schools anyway. There are good teachers, the experience doesn't HAVE to be all about processing into a good little drone, but that does tend to be the way it goes, and the system now exists to perpetuate the system.

so, now we're not talking about the every entire school system everywhere?

cause i think it's rather a gross overgeneralization to say that The school system no longer serves [any?] goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, and instead [exclusively??] manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on existing.

if you want to argue that there's a whole lot of bad crappy schools out there that simply make people jump through hoops to give them a paper, sure.

your local mileage may vary, and even then it can depend on the teachers you get.

psychologically speaking -

a lot of 'common sense' things seem to be traps

the 'old wisdom'

"you cant judge a book by its cover" mentality
"absence makes the heart grow fonder" mentality
"familiarity breeds contempt" mentality
"you cant teach a old dog new tricks" mentality


hear this kind of nonsense so much and in such unassuming circumstances that you start really taking it as some sort of truth

( sorry for interrupting the school-talk

speaking of that - it seems that a lot of it has to do with the particular faculty there at any given time

web forums could be a trap too - depending on where you are enrolled )

I'm not sure where I stand on this. Although the ideology behind schools seems to be having a big, efficient, sterile, autonomous meat grinder for producing "willing to work" students, this doesn't always work as planned. As I'm still in high school, this thread only highlighted how real the hoop jumping is. Every school day I am bound to hear at least four (no, not one) comments from teachers about meeting the status quo. Scratch that, I actually hear more of that sort of talk from my peers. There's always a small pocket of kids intentionally slacking off, though. They are told daily about the consequences of not meeting expectations, but they don't seem to give a damn. Could be many personal reasons for them to decide doing nothing will do something, but hasn't the machine accounted for this group and given them some sort of menial task?

Burger flipping, nevermind  :lulz:

Seems more like any ideology originally attached to education has been abandoned just to keep the whole thing afloat, though. I don't think anyone really has a handle on what schools are doing anymore. It's grown beyond a board of regulators to the point where it really is completely autonomous. Lately, all the U.S. Government has been capable of are ways to worsen education through adding more ways to measure people's worth. They don't really know how to make better worker bees, they're only capable of finding more ways to place a price tag on a student's head.

And another trap, criminals. Who makes criminals? Poverty? Hard drugs? Mental disabilities? Laws make criminals.

it seems that the only real crime is disrespect


and it always gets punished eventually

Quote from: triple zero on February 27, 2008, 01:00:36 AM
so, now we're not talking about the every entire school system everywhere?

cause i think it's rather a gross overgeneralization to say that The school system no longer serves [any?] goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, and instead [exclusively??] manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on existing.

if you want to argue that there's a whole lot of bad crappy schools out there that simply make people jump through hoops to give them a paper, sure.

your local mileage may vary, and even then it can depend on the teachers you get.

'The school system', as you illustrated, is too abstract a thing to exclusively do anything. The point is, that the reason we have schools is because schools teach us we need schools -- not because we necessarily need them.
Sadly though, having had the chance to hear a lot about the school systems in a good 7 or 8 countries and a little about probably another ten, it sounds to me that 'the school system' is an apt generalization. The "school systems" in the Western world are very really acting as just one big system; no trend in education in the last decade has been purely local. Both forces of change and of reaction seem to be more or less synchronized across the board.

Now, naturally there are many people within the school system who still operate on the old "schools teach people things that are good to have taught to you" maxim, but this has not, for a very, very long time, been the force keeping the institutions of schooling going. And that maxim is itself today nothing but a product of the school system's own meme factory. In other words, the people within the school system who believe the school system is mainly supposed to teach people for their own good, believe this entirely because that very school system taught this to them and to their parents. And this same maxim has, meanwhile, evolved a couple of offspring -- "people can't learn without school", "useful things are good to have taught", "teachers know what it would be good to teach you" -- and similar justifications for the existence of these institutions. Again, the primary reason anyone believes these statements are true, is that schools have been teaching them as True.

Quote from: triple zero on February 27, 2008, 01:00:36 AM
so, now we're not talking about the every entire school system everywhere?

cause i think it's rather a gross overgeneralization to say that The school system no longer serves [any?] goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, and instead [exclusively??] manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on existing.

if you want to argue that there's a whole lot of bad crappy schools out there that simply make people jump through hoops to give them a paper, sure.

your local mileage may vary, and even then it can depend on the teachers you get.

Well, I'm not, in my first foray into this discussion, talking about every entire school system everywhere. I can't speak for St. Verbatim. I'm only talking about the elements of our (Portland Public) school system where I've seen the kind of thing he's talking about.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 27, 2008, 12:39:57 AM
I have to disagree about what the school system is for. The school system is a self-preserving machine. It no longer serves the goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, but instead manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on exitsting. It is a vicious runaway factory utilizing society to maintain its existence.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v711/Marburger/citationneeded.jpg)

Atomised individualism

Game Theory

Explanations upon request

Game Theory understood.
Atomised individualism needs clarification.


Additionally, the following claims need verification:

1. The school system no longer serves the goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being.
2. The school system exclusively manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on exitsting.
3. The school system is a vicious runaway factory (clericification emphasis: "vicious" and "runaway").

The right belief that the individual is the most important starting point for understanding social phenomena, but the wrong belief that society does not exist or exerts no influence upon the individual.  People who believe in the latter tend to end up reading Ayn Rand books and acting like complete pillocks, or end up like Maggie Thatcher and Milton Friedman and ruin peoples lives.

How does that factor in the Madness of Crowds, or, "If the majority of people don't want war, why does war happen?"

Quote from: LMNO on February 27, 2008, 02:32:05 PM
How does that factor in the Madness of Crowds, or, "If the majority of people don't want war, why does war happen?"

They all spontaneously came to a rational decision at the same time.

Duh.

Quote from: Cain on February 27, 2008, 02:34:44 PM

Quote from: LMNO on February 27, 2008, 02:32:05 PM
How does that factor in the Madness of Crowds, or, "If the majority of people don't want war, why does war happen?"

They all spontaneously came to a rational decision at the same time.

Duh.

:potd:

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 27, 2008, 01:31:44 AM

Quote from: triple zero on February 27, 2008, 01:00:36 AM
so, now we're not talking about the every entire school system everywhere?

cause i think it's rather a gross overgeneralization to say that The school system no longer serves [any?] goals set forth by the ideology that brought it into being, and instead [exclusively??] manufactures ideologies that demand it keeps on existing.

if you want to argue that there's a whole lot of bad crappy schools out there that simply make people jump through hoops to give them a paper, sure.

your local mileage may vary, and even then it can depend on the teachers you get.

'The school system', as you illustrated, is too abstract a thing to exclusively do anything. The point is, that the reason we have schools is because schools teach us we need schools -- not because we necessarily need them.
Sadly though, having had the chance to hear a lot about the school systems in a good 7 or 8 countries and a little about probably another ten, it sounds to me that 'the school system' is an apt generalization. The "school systems" in the Western world are very really acting as just one big system; no trend in education in the last decade has been purely local. Both forces of change and of reaction seem to be more or less synchronized across the board.

I think you're being overly general and overly cynical.  The school systems in the Western world are NOT acting as one big system.  Each state funds their states' education systems as do local municipalities.  Local school boards make decisions on matters of spending and education, not the federal government.  Yes, the Feds do have the NCLB act for education standards, and yes it has caused many problems and many teachers are unhappy with it.  HOWEVER, I also know many teachers who are very innovative and learn how to work around NCLB in a way that engages students and makes sure they are prepared with knowledge that they will use beyond a bubble sheet. 

Part of my job entails working in various school systems in the State of Maine.  I can tell you first hand that what you say is not true and is grossly over-generalized.  I've seen where different school systems employ different tactics when it comes to education.  They aren't operating at the beck and call of some Phantom National Superintendent. 

Kids need to go to school because they can't teach themselves Physics and Chemistry.  They can't teach themselves how to be critical thinkers and problem solvers.  They can't teach themselves how to do Algebra and Geometry.  Because an industrialised economy REQUIRES a diversified work force.  And the only way that happens is when kids go to High School, get a layer of base knowledge, and then a certain percentage of them go on to get an additional layer of base knowledge (e.g. Bachelor's, Associates degrees, etc.)  It's no different then back in the old days when young people took up apprenticeships to learn how to be a blacksmith, or a tailor, or a bookmaker. 

QuoteNow, naturally there are many people within the school system who still operate on the old "schools teach people things that are good to have taught to you" maxim, but this has not, for a very, very long time, been the force keeping the institutions of schooling going. And that maxim is itself today nothing but a product of the school system's own meme factory. In other words, the people within the school system who believe the school system is mainly supposed to teach people for their own good, believe this entirely because that very school system taught this to them and to their parents. And this same maxim has, meanwhile, evolved a couple of offspring -- "people can't learn without school", "useful things are good to have taught", "teachers know what it would be good to teach you" -- and similar justifications for the existence of these institutions. Again, the primary reason anyone believes these statements are true, is that schools have been teaching them as True.

Call me crazy, but I want to make sure my Brain Surgeon learned his trade from an accredited University and not some article on Wikipedia. 

Things I learned in School that helped me even though I really didn't want to learn it at the time:


Grammar
Sentence Structure
Algebra
Physics
Chemistry
Techniques for effective subversion*
Allegories in books like Moby Dick, Dubliners, et al
Spanish
Acoustics
Signal Flow
"Black Box" analysis
Musical counterpoint/fugue composition
The quadratic equation

Please note that without the benefit of the school system, these topics, being of no interest to me at the time, would have never been studied. 



*Independent study

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 27, 2008, 03:05:29 PM
I think you're being overly general and overly cynical.  The school systems in the Western world are NOT acting as one big system.  Each state funds their states' education systems as do local municipalities.  Local school boards make decisions on matters of spending and education, not the federal government.  Yes, the Feds do have the NCLB act for education standards, and yes it has caused many problems and many teachers are unhappy with it.  HOWEVER, I also know many teachers who are very innovative and learn how to work around NCLB in a way that engages students and makes sure they are prepared with knowledge that they will use beyond a bubble sheet. 

Part of my job entails working in various school systems in the State of Maine.  I can tell you first hand that what you say is not true and is grossly over-generalized.  I've seen where different school systems employ different tactics when it comes to education.  They aren't operating at the beck and call of some Phantom National Superintendent.

I didn't mean schools nationwide or Western-worldwide are in any way organizationally united. I mean they operate on the same principles and seem to function as one large multinational organism or organization. This is in a away obvious, but it's surprising to me sometimes to see how changes in education happen more or less at the same time in very different places. Some time in the last year or two, when I still lived in Israel, it somehow came to my knowledge that Britain had decided, or was deliberating, making it mandatory to stay in school until the age of 18. The very same topic was briefly in the news that week in Israel too, but I think the proposal there didn't pass. And then it came to my attention not long afterwards that the same proposal is being considered here in Germany. I think it hasn't come to a vote yet. (Not entirely sure about all the details here.)

Yes, this is an entirely superficial example. Yes, I am making claims that I cannot necessarily prove. I'm telling you my biased, subjective impression of the situation, and I do not mean any of this as statements of fact. But my point is that the educations systems all over the Western world are seemingly acting in unison. There was, until about three years ago, a very strong trend across the board towards making educational settings more comfortable and lax. This included, in a great many places, less administrative resistance towards democratic schools (of all shapes and colors). And then rather abruptly, about two or three years ago (maybe four), this trend was replaced with policies demanding more testing, more grading, and altogether more machine-like efficiency in schools. Both trends had the students' best interests in mind and I won't try and take them apart or give examples unless you ask me to. The point is, that these things happened on an international scale in awe-inspiring harmony - regardless of who actually pays the teachers to teach.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 27, 2008, 03:05:29 PMKids need to go to school because they can't teach themselves Physics and Chemistry.  They can't teach themselves how to be critical thinkers and problem solvers.  They can't teach themselves how to do Algebra and Geometry.  Because an industrialised economy REQUIRES a diversified work force.  And the only way that happens is when kids go to High School, get a layer of base knowledge, and then a certain percentage of them go on to get an additional layer of base knowledge (e.g. Bachelor's, Associates degrees, etc.)  It's no different then back in the old days when young people took up apprenticeships to learn how to be a blacksmith, or a tailor, or a bookmaker. 

Call me crazy, but I want to make sure my Brain Surgeon learned his trade from an accredited University and not some article on Wikipedia. 

I disagree with your view of the diversified work force. I certainly care where my brain surgeon learned to cut, but I frankly couldn't possibly care less how many foreign languages he speaks and what his GPA was in highschool. I believe the school system has taken the means to its original end - primarily testing and grading - and turned these in many ways into a means of their own. I recall anecdotes about good teachers who would teach interesting, fun, useful things all year and then come testing time they'd put that all aside and just crunch test material because their job was at stake.

But beside all that, I think the best thing for a diversified workforce is a diversified educational environment. People today switch careers almost as if they were undergarments. I makes little sense in the shifting environment of todays "real world" to put children in environments that teach them repetition, boredom, and the submission of their will and intuition to the demands of a bureaucracy. Sitting on chairs and copying stuff of a blackboard doesn't prepare you for life - only life does.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 12:39:52 AMI disagree with your view of the diversified work force. I certainly care where my brain surgeon learned to cut, but I frankly couldn't possibly care less how many foreign languages he speaks and what his GPA was in highschool.

So you wouldn't prefer a doctor who got A's in high school over a doctor who got C's? Only where they went to med school matters?

You'll never have to make that choice - nobody who got C's high school went to a good med school. All those bullshit high school requirements are directly relevant to your choice of a doctor.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 12:39:52 AM
I makes little sense in the shifting environment of todays "real world" to put children in environments that teach them repetition, boredom, and the submission of their will and intuition to the demands of a bureaucracy. Sitting on chairs and copying stuff of a blackboard doesn't prepare you for life - only life does.

actually I think that stuff prepares people pretty well for a lifetime of retail purgatory or white collar slavery.

Yes, well the current British government is a control freak in all areas of public life right now, and operates under the current assumption that the population exist to serve the state, but that's a relatively modern innovation in UK political history, especially on the left.  It is also one hotly disputed by the grassroot levels of the party, and that only seems to be hanging on in the cabinet via luck alone.

I can tell you the short comings of the UK school system from experience.  The main one is that it is overly reliant on testing.  You can expect to sit roughly 15 nationally mandated tests a year from the age of 14 to 18.  The results on each test have knock-on effects on later learning options as well, so you are thrown in at the deep end early on, if you have aspirations of further education.  SAT tests affect your class placements for GCSEs which then affect what level you can do the exam at which determine your maximum result which then can determine which A levels you can do which affects what University's you can apply for.  That's another obsession of our government, testing something to destruction. 

Was it a method of control?  Of course.  Was it a very good one?  Not really.  It raised resentment among both students and teaching staff, and because of the lack of personnel to enforce the rules, teachers who wanted to circumvent the rules, did.  My philosophy teacher being the perfect example, who taught us to lie, steal, cheat and play the system for all it was worth.  Many other teachers were similar, if less extreme.  They let their students know perfectly well that what they were being told to do and how to do it was both arbitrary and pointless, and how they should play the system while not adhering to its every lunacy.  If anything, it forced the evolution of a relatively intelligent group of people in such ways as they were suspicious of authority and knew exactly when and how to play the game - and when to deviate from the rules and established norms when it was deemed expedient.

Cram, I'm well aware that all doctors had good grades in highschool. The point is I don't give a damn what their highschool grades were, I only want to know my doctors are good doctors. The amount of general knowledge they have, their ability to take tests, their ability to write a good essay - all completely irrelevant to being a good doctor. The fact the systems in place require many hoops to be jumped before you can even start learning to practice medicine is beside the point.
It is not absolutely necessary for universities and med schools to screen people by their highschool grades. It is, naturally, convenient for them that they can do this, but they could just as well personally test applicants and/or decide in other ways who gets in.
And really, the thing that bothers me isn't the fact that this whole system of testing exists, but rather just that people and schools often seem to attribute far too much importance to the system currently in place.

In contrast to the way most schools work, I'd like to mention Sudbury Valley School (Framingham, MA, USA). At SVS students are neither forced nor even really encouraged to take any tests. The school gives highschool diplomas based on a thesis system, the details of which I am not familiar with. In general to get a diploma there you have to prove to the school community, in whatever way you choose, that you are ready to move on and go out into the world. The school has done a couple of studies of the lives of alumni, and if I'm not mistaken, most SVS alumni who went on to university/college got into the college of their first choice, and the rest got their second choice. Apparently, in the United States, it's possible to nag a college for an interview and convince a college to admit you, if you really want to - regardless of what kind of grades or diplomas you have from highschool.
This is, regrettably, not the case in most of the rest of the world. In Germany you really do need Abitur (really tough SAT/A-Level equivalent) to go to University. But I have yet to hear of a country where one cannot take whatever tests are required for college/university if you want to, regardless of whether you take them at school or elsewhere. Even Germany, notorious for restrictive legislation when it comes to education, has an "external Abitur" system for people not in school for whatever reason (adults, too, I think.)

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 01:38:32 AM
Cram, I'm well aware that all doctors had good grades in highschool. The point is I don't give a damn what their highschool grades were, I only want to know my doctors are good doctors. The amount of general knowledge they have, their ability to take tests, their ability to write a good essay - all completely irrelevant to being a good doctor. The fact the systems in place require many hoops to be jumped before you can even start learning to practice medicine is beside the point.

To use a metaphor, you seem to be saying that you don't care if the castle is built on a swamp.

Knowledge of a discipline is not an isolated thing... usually the best people in a chosen field are not the people who are soley focused on that field, they are the Polymaths.  A broad knowledge of many different subjects is beneficial when creative solutions are needed for difficult problems.

You can't play "what if" problem-solving games if you have no knowlegde of external systems.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 12:39:52 AM
I disagree with your view of the diversified work force. I certainly care where my brain surgeon learned to cut, but I frankly couldn't possibly care less how many foreign languages he speaks and what his GPA was in highschool. I believe the school system has taken the means to its original end - primarily testing and grading - and turned these in many ways into a means of their own. I recall anecdotes about good teachers who would teach interesting, fun, useful things all year and then come testing time they'd put that all aside and just crunch test material because their job was at stake.

Well, like it or not, testing IS necessary in the education system.  Why?  Because if any organization is going to be worth its salt it needs to have mechanisms for evaluation.  (btw, I am a professional Evaluator, this is how I put bread on my table)  The best quantifiable measure, currently, as to whether or not the education systems are doing their job is through testing.  When you see slippage in Math scores, you know you have to re-examine the mathematics curricula. 

Now, that said, of course you don't want your teachers solely teaching to the test.  And you don't want to solely rely on the standardized tests to evaluate individual school systems.  That is where the school board, PTA's, teacher workshops, etc. come in.  You also have to realize that schools are also at the mercy of the economy, local and beyond.  A school may not have the luxury to be innovative because of a funding crunch where they have to cut back on personnel.  But yes, you are always going to have your teachers who teach to the test, but I also feel there are a great many, those who actually teach because they enjoy teaching, who find the ways to make it fun and interesting and RETAINABLE. 

QuoteBut beside all that, I think the best thing for a diversified workforce is a diversified educational environment. People today switch careers almost as if they were undergarments. I makes little sense in the shifting environment of todays "real world" to put children in environments that teach them repetition, boredom, and the submission of their will and intuition to the demands of a bureaucracy. Sitting on chairs and copying stuff of a blackboard doesn't prepare you for life - only life does.

High school is not supposed to prepare kids for specific jobs.  The goal of high school is to give you a base level of knowledge from which you can build upon.  Whether it is going on to college, getting into apprenticeships or other skilled labor situations, going into the military, etc.  To go back to the Brain Surgeon example, a kid just can't enroll in a University to be trained as a Brain Surgeon without first learning fundamental reading, math, and science skills.  This is why a University will reject students who can't sufficiently prove they have those skills, so they aren't filling their Brain Surgeon classes with students who can't multiply or problem solve. 

And btw, repetition is kind of necessary to learn.  Not every kid nails long division on the first homework assignment.  Not every student driver nails parallel parking on the first try.  And do we really want a bunch of novice, untested kids behind the steering wheel of a Hummer?  I think not. 

Re: Testing.

The problem seems to arise because it's easier to grade "right/wrong" than "process" in a standardized, large-scale way.  In physics, we were graded on the steps we used to get an answer, and not on the answer itself.

For example, "10 points.  Stan throws an apple out of a tree at Kenny.  The tree is 10m high. Kenny is 15m away.  If Stan throws at 1m/s, will he hit Stan, and how fast will the apple be travelling?"

Each step of figuring this out would be graded.  So, if you got the force of gravity wrong, but got the F=ma and v=dt equations right, you'd still get at least 8 out of 10 points.  On a standardized test, you'd get the whole thing wrong, but the kid knew how to solve the problem.

And knowing the process of solving the problem, to me, is more important than the "right" answer.

Maine is actually looking at introducing something into the public education system that would, kind of, address integrating process into standardized education evaluations.  The Education Commissioner has proposed, for lack of a better term, "Standardized Projects", that would be worked into the various curricula. 

For example, there would be a requirement for all students to conduct a scientific research project.  It wouldn't be original research of course, but to research certain scientific principles.  And so the state, in conjunction with educators, would develop a set of standards to evaluate the process of the research project.  The goal is to be able to evaluate how high school students are applying what they learn. 

So they would still do the standardized testing, which you are right really focuses on "right/wrong", but they'd also have this other mechanism to evaluate the application of knowledge. 

tanget--

My favorite high school teacher - one who had a great effect on who I am today - quit because of the No Child Left Behind act. I went and talked to him about this and he said,

there's just no time to teach Jungian Archetypes, analyze Led Zeppelin lyrics, and also prepare kids to take two giant meaningless tests per year. I've actually got to cut two out of three of those activities, and the school board didn't like my decision to keep Zeppelin. So I quit.



I'm in the buisness of publishing textbooks, so this is also an issue close to my heart. In California public schools, if you don't perform on an English test at at least two grades below your grade level, (so if an 11th grader only has a 8th grade vocabulary) you get marked for "INTERVENTION" and have to take special classes. We publish the books for those classes. A lot of these kids are just learning English and are angry that they're getting treated like they're mentally handicapped or something. They WANT to learn, they just haven't had time to learn enough English to do well on the standardized test. A lot of these kids end up dropping out. Not because they're stupid, but because they're sick of being treated like idiots.

okay I could go on about this for a while but it's best to post before this becomes too tl;dr

So-- The Machine™ trap in the school system is not the internal education process, it's the external standardization process.

Can we agree on that?

Yeah, makes sense. 

In concert with the Machine-driven mechanisms of the economy.  Because the standardized tests are driven by the almighty dollar.  It's the anti-carrot approach. 

If your school doesn't perform we won't whack you with a stick, but we'll cut off your carrot supply. 

The thing that bothers me most, personally now, is not standardization - because like I said, if you want to get a good grade you can, anywhere. What bothers me most is the presumption that all children must be forced to go to school, forced to learn a set curriculum, and most importantly forced to do it on the system's terms.
The internal logic of standardization and education and all that, as you guys have presented it here, is relatively sound (and please take this as a complement, most people I've heard/read arguing in favor of these things elsewhere have made huge asses of themselves). But I've personally experienced an alternative (wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school)) and I know that people can educate themselves if you let them - and if they want to, or at least want to try.

First, children aren't forced to go to school.  Home schooling is always an option.
But this is something that isn't done often, why?  Because it's probably best for a child to get an education from an educator who has an education in educating.

As for the Sudbury Schools, can you provide some sort of study or statistics that speak to how well these students do after graduating?  I see the 80% graduation rate from colleges, but to use your line or reasoning, if someone wants to graduate from college, they can, anywhere.  In other words, I'm interested in information that verifiably states that a Sudbury alumnus' education has put them in some better position in life as compared to a public school graduate.   

Home schooling is always an option in the United States of America. In Germany, people are actually leaving the country now solely because it's illegal here. (But Germany is a kind of worst-case example.) And the law is a far less important factor in this kind of decision than "what the neighbors will think", in my experience. My family still gets nasty looks from my own aunts and uncles because of the school we started, so I really don't blame people who prefer to stick to the mainstream methods.
Anyhoo, I'm not a proponent of homeschooling, but not for the reason you mentioned - I don't think children need educators. I think children need friends. And parents need to let go of their kids. Home schooling prohibits both.

The only studies done so far on Sudbury schools are the two books published by Sudbury Vallley School - one in the last decade, another about ten years earlier. The later, more current one, is called "Pursuit of Happiness". It does not compare alumni to a control group, but many of the statistics speak for themselves. The one I remember most strongly is the incredibly high proportion of alumni who said things along the lines of "I'm happy" and "I like my job" - two statements that I think very few people in society at large can say. I don't have a copy here so I can't quote directly, but the book should be available on www.sudval.org if you're interested.
I think the point is much more that SVS has not /hindered/ alumni's chances to do well in life. All too often it seems people support schooling and testing because they're afraid of what might happen (or not happen) if children are not schooled and tested. Apparently, people who go to Sudbury Valley School do just fine, so this fear is misguided.
(Homeschoolers and Unschoolers have proven rather successful as well, by the way.)

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 04:08:40 PM
Home schooling is always an option in the United States of America. In Germany, people are actually leaving the country now solely because it's illegal here. (But Germany is a kind of worst-case example.) And the law is a far less important factor in this kind of decision than "what the neighbors will think", in my experience. My family still gets nasty looks from my own aunts and uncles because of the school we started, so I really don't blame people who prefer to stick to the mainstream methods.
Anyhoo, I'm not a proponent of homeschooling, but not for the reason you mentioned - I don't think children need educators. I think children need friends. And parents need to let go of their kids. Home schooling prohibits both.

The only studies done so far on Sudbury schools are the two books published by Sudbury Vallley School - one in the last decade, another about ten years earlier. The later, more current one, is called "Pursuit of Happiness". It does not compare alumni to a control group, but many of the statistics speak for themselves. The one I remember most strongly is the incredibly high proportion of alumni who said things along the lines of "I'm happy" and "I like my job" - two statements that I think very few people in society at large can say. I don't have a copy here so I can't quote directly, but the book should be available on www.sudval.org if you're interested.
I think the point is much more that SVS has not /hindered/ alumni's chances to do well in life. All too often it seems people support schooling and testing because they're afraid of what might happen (or not happen) if children are not schooled and tested. Apparently, people who go to Sudbury Valley School do just fine, so this fear is misguided.
(Homeschoolers and Unschoolers have proven rather successful as well, by the way.)

And there are many people who go into the public school system who would say "I'm happy", "I like my job" and who "do just fine." 
So while the SVS education process certainly is different, I see nothing, from an unbiased source, that suggests its outcomes are any better than the public school system.  Also, just a note, anectdotes =/= statistics. 

Again, I think you are vastly overgeneralizing when you say things like "two statements that I think very few people in society at large can say."  Certainly there are people in society who are unhappy and who don't like their job.  But you can't completely lay that at the feet of the education system.  It MAY play a factor, but there are certainly many other factors as well, like, say, the economy that is in recession which limits the amount of available jobs. 

Also, in the links for the sudbury schools, there is no "criticisms" page.

I also have doubts (sans citations) about the effectiveness of this system is heavly populated, economically disadvantaged, urban areas.

Brooklyn, for example.

@RWHN:
I never meant to lay down hard cold facts or statistics. Like I said, my point is mainly that just letting kids do whatever the hell they want doesn't generally tend to ruin their lives, or even significantly worsen their chances at a good future. And it's a process I feel much, much more comfortable with.
The point I was trying to make earlier, about the self-preserving aspects of the school system, is that the school system manages to sell itself as the only way to provide children and society with a bright future. On this point, I beg to differ.
But I feel like this argument is somehow getting derailed, and I think I might be the one doing it. *glances accusingly at self*

@LMNO: You mean on school websites? Why would a school post criticism of its own POV on a promotional website? As for Wikipedia, I sure as hell haven't seen anyone censor away criticism (it's a page I try to watch). If there's none to be found there, apparently nobody has taken the time to put it there.

There's a Sudbury school in Oregon called Blue Mountain School, which is a charter school. Most of their students are from very low-income demographics. I think most students there are on a hot meals program. Works just fine, from what I've heard (and I've met some staff and students from there.) Problem is, their charter just got revoked mid-contract and they probably can't afford to continue running the school. I gotta run, but search for Blue Mountain School on YouTube, they put out a pledge for donations about a month ago and also explained the situation (not in entirely objective terms, of course.)

The school I co-founded, went to for four years, and graduated, Sudbury Jerusalem (in Jerusalem, Israel), also has a very high proportion of low-income demographics (but not as high as BMS does). Also works just fine. I understand the concern about this issue (many, many people have doubted the same thing) but I honestly do not see a fundamental problem in that area. The main problem seems to be that low-income families want to stick to the mainstream style of education to prove their worth (which is even more true of minorities.)

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 04:57:26 PM
@RWHN:
I never meant to lay down hard cold facts or statistics. Like I said, my point is mainly that just letting kids do whatever the hell they want doesn't generally tend to ruin their lives, or even significantly worsen their chances at a good future. And it's a process I feel much, much more comfortable with.
The point I was trying to make earlier, about the self-preserving aspects of the school system, is that the school system manages to sell itself as the only way to provide children and society with a bright future. On this point, I beg to differ.
But I feel like this argument is somehow getting derailed, and I think I might be the one doing it. *glances accusingly at self*

But isn't it kind of hard to argue against it?  I mean, think of all the successful business people, entrepeneurs, athletes, musicians, artists, politicians, non-profit employees, doctors, dentists, airline pilots, etc.,   My hunch would be that many of these successful people have a HS diploma.  And I would wager a substantial percentage of them are happy with life and happy with their job.  So, sure it isn't the only way, sure it has its problems which need to be addressed, but it seems like calling it a trap is illogical when so many seem to NOT get stuck.  SVS may have success but that doesn't negate the successes of the public school system.  And again, those who do get stuck, you can't blame it all on the education system, there are too many other factors at play. 

Quote from: Requiem on February 22, 2008, 08:27:54 AM
The popularity contest.  All the good cogs in the machine are expected to act in a certain way so everybody will like them.  Caring what other people think, simply for the sake of being liked, seems a fast track to giving up your will to the machine.

For me it's caring what other think for the sake of being liked, for the sake of getting laid.

That's kind of unfair. Of course in a society where over 90% of the population tries to get a HS diploma you'll see that most successful people managed to do so.

On the other hand, I can quote nearly-hard statistics from Israel (they may be stale by now, but they definitely applied a couple of years ago.) Namely, under 50% of high school graduates in Israel (or was it just in Jerusalem?) get the Bagrut, which is very clearly seen as the goal of highschools in Israel. Bagrut is a diploma awarded by the state, based on a series of state-adminitrated exams. There is no highschool diploma in Israel, or at least nobody cares about it, because only Bagrut matters for the military, college and employment. In both Sudbury schools in Israel, all students who try for a Bagrut during their highschool years (it's not mandatory) get one.
But that's about as far as my memory for statistics can go. The point I'm trying to get across, is that the school system, with its grading and testing, may be the dominant form of education, but it's not necessarily the best and pretty clearly not the most effective or humane.

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on February 28, 2008, 12:55:39 AM

So you wouldn't prefer a doctor who got A's in high school over a doctor who got C's? Only where they went to med school matters?

You'll never have to make that choice - nobody who got C's high school went to a good med school. All those bullshit high school requirements are directly relevant to your choice of a doctor.

I was curious about this statement, and conveniently having a friend who's a senior financial analyst at OSHU, I had her ask some doctors. Turns out it's not true, in fact med schools don't even look at your high school transcripts, they only care about your college transcripts, and there are plenty of ways to recover from poor high school grades and get into a good college, or perform outstandingly at a state school and go on to a good med school. Fuck, my sister dropped out of high school after blowing off and failing most of her classes, eventually got her GED, did community college and went the whole transfer-student route, and ended up graduating with honors from Lewis and Clark. I know a lot of people who were mediocre high school students who pulled it out of the hat for college, you just have to be creative once you get there.

The doctor poll is still ongoing. So far two of the four polled claim to have had mediocre high school grades. Of course, when I did go to school I cried if I got a B, so "mediocre" is perhaps open to interpretation.

Quote from: st.verbatim on February 28, 2008, 09:42:17 PM
That's kind of unfair. Of course in a society where over 90% of the population tries to get a HS diploma you'll see that most successful people managed to do so.

It's not unfair, you opened the door.  In previous posts you talked about how many people in society can't say they are happy with life and their jobs, the insinuation you make is that the education system set them up for this.  I am pointing out to you the fallacy of that line of thinking because there are many who have gone through the public school systems who are happy AND successful.  Me being one of them. 

QuoteThe point I'm trying to get across, is that the school system, with its grading and testing, may be the dominant form of education, but it's not necessarily the best and pretty clearly not the most effective or humane.

Please to demonstrate how it is "clear" that the public school system isn't the most effective.  Then, please lay out for me, specifically, how it is inhumane.  Have they started waterboarding kids in school or something? 

Y'know this is one of the traps of Discordianism.  There can be a tendency to want to see teh suck in everything in society.  To tear it down because it's some monstrous behemoth of fail.  But of course it's all mired in generalization and rhetoric.  There certainly are problems in society that need to be addressed, but razing it all to the ground isn't the solution.  Change is going to be most effective on a micro level, not a macro level.  So instead of deeming the whole of the public education system doomed and inadequate, the better tact to take is to work for change, and to work with the system.  We've talked about this before, you can't ever take down the Machine, but you can work on the cogs and effect change on that level, and as these cogs move they effect the other gears and cogs that are adjacent.  The change can seep into the various mechanisms. 

The world is imperfect.

They systems and societies in the world are imperfect.

The people in the systems and societies in the world are imperfect.

There is no perfect solution for the people in the systems and societies in the world.







Wear a helmet.

may i just say to RWHN and some of the other ppl on the prev page that i'm happy that this thread turned this way. because i was having the really weird feeling i was standing alone in making the arguments i did, and getting a bit tired of the discussion too.
there's a lot of stuff in verbatim's posts that i want to contradict and argue against (like, every second sentence or so), which is exactly the reason why i already get tired thinking of it.

so eh thanks rwhn :)

St. V isn't the first person I've heard tear down the public school system.  The Republicans here in Maine do it regularly.  (which is ironic considering it was their President who put NCLB into place.)  Meanwhile I know many teachers, who I know are giving their students a good education that goes beyond tests.  I have a friend who has students she taught like 10 years ago who still write her and will stop to talk to her if they run into her.  And I know there are many teachers like her in the school systems.  Teachers are disgustingly underpaid in this country, so you've gotta think that most of them are doing it because they want to.  And that means they will find ways around obstacles like bureaucracy shit like NCLB.  Sure, there are going to be those who are just going to do status quo and teach to the test, and not go above and beyond.  But, my sense is that they are in the minority. 

I also think that if the schools were really that bad and, "inhumane", that they wouldn't exist anymore.  Unless of course we also think that 99.9% of parents don't have their childrens' best interests at heart. 

I think there are a few things running parallel here:

1.  Underfunding of public education.
2.  Overcrowding (see #1).
3.  Strict standardization in the name of Metrics and Regulation.

And, add to all of this

4.  Children resent being told what to do, and eventually go through radical hormonal changes, affecting emotion and mood.


See, at some point or other, every kid hates school.*  I would even venture to say this happens in Sudbury schools.  But it isn't that school is necessarily a hellish place, it's that the kids are going through a particularly hellish time in their lives.








*Ok, that wasn't in E-Prime.  Sue me.

there seems to be no good alternative on this planet at this time

I gotta run (my father and brother are coming here to stay with me for a few days, gotta pick them up) but I'll answer briefly to a few points:
-I consider pedagogy and the education system less effective than Sudbury schools. Pedagogy is a whole science about how to do the right things to get the right results out of children, and the education system invests tremendous amounts of energy into getting it right. Sudbury schools do not go to these efforts, and still get results just as good or sometimes better.
-I consider schooling somewhat inhumane because it limits or wholly revokes a (young) person's right to determine what to do with his or her time. The situation in the United States is far less serious on this point because educational choice is a right that all enjoy. In Germany this right does not exist. And there are many countries in the grey area (such as Israel).
-I'm not trying to attack the education system because of Discordianism. I co-founded the school I went to three years before I first saw or heard the word "Discordianism".
-Teenagers at Sudbury schools who started there at a young age rarely if ever hate their school. Teenage angst can sometimes be directed at the school, but it's very hard to hate an organization that you actually have a completely equal share in. Sudbury schools tend to also be very supportive environments where you can talk to people about what you're going through. This is a tremendous help for teenagers and many of them only start to actually *love* the school when they start going through that.

That's all the time I've got. I probably won't have time to visit this thread (or PDCOM in general) for about six days now, but I'll try and jump back in when I can.

Could you elaborate on the educational choice issue.  I'd like to know more about this.  I'm presuming you mean the choice of where or if to go to school? 

Also, what are the socioeconomic demographics for a Sundbury school?  How large was the mix there between different groups in society?  Obviously they are successful at some level, but I have to wonder if thats not due to the sort of parents who are drawn to such a school rather than the teaching methods alone.  I may be wrong, its just a suspicion I have, but you know how statistics can be...

Turns out I have more time to myself than I had expected, so here I am.

About the educational choice matter, yes, I mean the right for a child to choose her own education, or as most states put it, the parents' right to choose their child's education. In the United States it is every family's right to unschool, homeschool or to go to whatever school they choose. In Germany, homeschooling is illegal and all schools must conform to relatively strict standards which dictate how the school should work. And if you don't send your kids to a state-approved school, the police can (and actually might) come to take the kid to school themselves, or revoke your custody. I think without a trial, in both cases. In Israel the legal situation is similar to that in Germany, save three very important caveats: the criteria for the state to recognize a school are much less limiting, the police cannot take your kid to school by force,  or take her away from you without a trial (and even in trial, not going to school is not an acceptable reason alone) and lastly that the people in charge of checking on kids who aren't in a recognized school will leave you alone if the kid is doing well - their job is just to make sure the kids aren't being forced to work, aren't on the streets, and aren't being abused.
If I'm not mistaken, Germany is now the only state in the EU where you have to send your child to a state-approved school. The UK is considered a difficult country for democratic education, but homeschooling is legal and I know a family that fled Germany to England to enjoy this right.

As for the socioeconomic demographics, these are naturally very different from one school to another. In Sudbury Jerusalem I know the demographics are more or less directly equivalent to the general demographics in the city. The only groups not at all represented are the utterly destitute (though a family or two do get close), the Israeli Arabs of East Jerusalem (none, or as good as none, have ever so much as inquired about admission) and the Haredi Jews (which have their own robust education system anyhow, and have never showed any interest.) The school is not, as many have suggested (elsewhere), dominated by high-income families. The only thing I can say to tipify the families at Sudbury Jerusalem is that in each family at least one parent considers their child's happiness valuable and important.
I know of at least one other Sudbury school with many low-income families - Blue Mountain School in Oregon, US, which I mentioned earlier in this thread. In none of the Sudbury schools that I've visited did I get the impression that everybody is rich.
I'm not saying you implied that everyone would be rich and comfortable, but this is very often what people imply. Another thing people often say is that these schools attract parents who are interested and engaged in their kids' school life and are involved in "pushing" the kid to succeed. Not really true, but I can elaborate if that's what you meant.
Or did you have something else in mind?

Well, I didn't wonder if they were rich and comfortable per se, but that was part of it.  Families who both value education, had the means to be able to send their child to such a school and had the knowledge and reasoning ability to decide it was the best for their child.  That might be harder to pick up via demographics than how I framed it, almost certainly, but that was what I had in mind.  I believe usually, according to the sociologists, its middle class families who value education most, but I'd have to check on that.  Either way, the greater the mix of backgrounds and social groups, the greater the chances are it is a successful model and not just a fluke anyway, so the point is redered fairly useless.

Also, this blogger manages to show quite well what I mean by atomistic individualism.  Calling himself a contextual libertarian, he makes the point quite well about social and cultural influences http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2003/11/in-praise-of-contextual-libertarianism.html

Well, I'd venture to say that a part of Jewish culture (as a value scheme) is the emphasis on education, rendering that particular point rather irrelevant in Israel. The means are definitely a difficulty, but in Sudbury Jerusalem the school goes to great efforts to give families stipends if they need them. As for reasoning, I'd say many families go for it based on instinct or emotion. I've heard from more than one parent statements amounting to "my kid was so happy during his trial week I had to let him keep going there".
At the end of the day, most families in Sudbury Jerusalem got there because they were miserable elsewhere and were looking for an alternative.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 01, 2008, 02:17:19 PM
I gotta run (my father and brother are coming here to stay with me for a few days, gotta pick them up) but I'll answer briefly to a few points:
-I consider pedagogy and the education system less effective than Sudbury schools. Pedagogy is a whole science about how to do the right things to get the right results out of children, and the education system invests tremendous amounts of energy into getting it right. Sudbury schools do not go to these efforts, and still get results just as good or sometimes better.

[citation needed]

Quote-I consider schooling somewhat inhumane because it limits or wholly revokes a (young) person's right to determine what to do with his or her time. The situation in the United States is far less serious on this point because educational choice is a right that all enjoy. In Germany this right does not exist. And there are many countries in the grey area (such as Israel).

I agree, if a child literally has no choice as to where he goes to school then that is a pretty crappy situation.  I think part of our disagreement stemmed from cultural differences.  I think you are largely speaking from experiences on the other side of the pond while me being an American, I am seeing things from a different perspective.  Again, here in the States, I've seen some wonderful and innovative things done within the public school system.  Sounds like perhaps things aren't as rosy on that side and I really have no insights to educational matters where you are from. 

What is the budgetary difference between "standard" publich schools and Sudbury schools?

That is, what is the "actual" cost-per-student between each school?

"Actual" in this case means the gross total spent per year divided by the number of students that attend.

RWHN, I understand that, but I believe there's a very strong case to be made for Sudbury schooling in the States as well. As you can see, I have a bit of a harder time in this kind of argument because I know more about the situations in Europe and Israel. But I tend to believe that as long as a school is still based on the same basic ideas that have been the basis of schooling since the Industrial Revolution, it's still essentially operating on false assumptions.

LMNO, I don't know about the specific figures, particularly regarding public schools. I know, however, that Sudbury Valley School, which operates as a private school, has always been far, far cheaper than any public school in the area, and the difference is only growing. The numbers were there in one of their books, but I've read about a dozen of them so I really don't know anymore where to look.

I'll be the first to admit Sudbury schools have a very acute lack of studies comparing them with other schools. But the lack of studies and statistics is not an argument against this kind of schools, or the philosophy behind it.

concerning both the schoolsystem and as an example of a trap in itself:
seggregation by age: If a child grows up being mostly surrounded by people of about the same age as itself and one or two grownups that are soo much older that a connection is very hard to make, and then after school it comes home to parents who are too tired from working all day(and unwilling to talk about work cuz it was teh suXXor)

Then the child will never get a view of how people develop as they become older because for that it needs an almost continuous surrounding with people from all age-groups(preferable multiple examples of each age-group), wich is impossible in the current schoolsystem.

I have the silly idea stuck in my head that putting undeveloped human brains in a culture and enviroment dominated by undeveloped human brains isn't the best way to instill the culture that is desired by the parents.

Then again, the parents grew up in the same schoolsystem, so their culture might be exactly the same.

I have no proof for any of this but thats ok because you don't have to agree with my view anyway.

Quote from: Regret on March 25, 2008, 03:38:46 PM
concerning both the schoolsystem and as an example of a trap in itself:
seggregation by age: If a child grows up being mostly surrounded by people of about the same age as itself and one or two grownups that are soo much older that a connection is very hard to make, and then after school it comes home to parents who are too tired from working all day(and unwilling to talk about work cuz it was teh suXXor)

Then the child will never get a view of how people develop as they become older because for that it needs an almost continuous surrounding with people from all age-groups(preferable multiple examples of each age-group), wich is impossible in the current schoolsystem.

I have the silly idea stuck in my head that putting undeveloped human brains in a culture and enviroment dominated by undeveloped human brains isn't the best way to instill the culture that is desired by the parents.

Then again, the parents grew up in the same schoolsystem, so their culture might be exactly the same.

I have no proof for any of this but thats ok because you don't have to agree with my view anyway.

I call BS.  Segregation by age is a necessary construct in that different age levels can comprehend different levels of materials.  I mean you're not going to have some 5 year old in an Algebra class with 9th graders.  At recess time, kids have the opportunity to mingle and socialize with kids in other grades.  There is also nothing keeping them from socializing with other kids in their neighborhoods who will be likely of varying ages.  How many millions have gone through that system, and while society certainly can use improvement, I don't see how that particular construct of the education system has lead to any current issues. 

One of the (many) grade schools I went to kept different grade students together for most subjects.  I.e., my fourth grade class also had fifth graders in it, and my fifth grade class had third and fourth graders as well.

Mostly what I remember was that some of the third graders were total assholes and that it was very hard not to punch them in the face.



You have a point though, children need role models.  More mature children and adults need to be present and need to engage the children.  Things like sports teams or other extracurriculars that mix age groups can help with this, both because they expose children to slightly older children and to the coaches and leaders, who are usually either parents or high school / college kids.

I do think that in high school the freshman who hung out with the upperclassmen grew up faster, not sure if the more mentally mature freshman gravitated towards the upperclassmen or if the upperclassmen influenced them.

Speaking as someone who hung out with high school seniors while in junior high, I'd like to say that this probably slowed my maturity way way down.  :lulz:

heh i didn't mean teaching kids of all ages the same thing, ofcourse the curriculum should be ageist. I was thinking more of getting kids to be more exposed to those younger and older then them.
Combining schools with community centres would be a good start, seeing some old geezers playing chess, some teens in the middle of hormonal turmoil and some so called grownups bitching about the weather or politics would be of much rgeater use then spending another couple of hours stuck in class ignoring mr johnson talking about history again. Maybe integrate it even more and get lots of older(and younger?) guest-teachers.

I would like to know what would happen if the surroundings of a child are a good representation of the society it will be expected to function in and the kind of roles it might wish/have to play when growing older.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 25, 2008, 08:00:35 PM
different age levels can comprehend different levels of materials

[citation needed]

I know a 12-year-old who knew more about physics four years ago than I do today. I understand Algebra better than my mom does. My sister, two years my junior, groks music theory on a level I can't hold a candle to.
Where exactly does this linear, age-based scale of comprehension come into play? Or is this about those "average n-year-olds" I keep hearing about? I wish I could meet an Average 19-Year-Old Male and see how I compare with him.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 26, 2008, 10:58:26 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 25, 2008, 08:00:35 PM
different age levels can comprehend different levels of materials

[citation needed]

I know a 12-year-old who knew more about physics four years ago than I do today. I understand Algebra better than my mom does. My sister, two years my junior, groks music theory on a level I can't hold a candle to.
Where exactly does this linear, age-based scale of comprehension come into play? Or is this about those "average n-year-olds" I keep hearing about? I wish I could meet an Average 19-Year-Old Male and see how I compare with him.

Of course there will be individuals who will excel at learning and be able to handle more advanced topics.  But really it's more of a construct on advancement.  Generally, you need to have a good foundation of basic mathematics before you can tackle more advanced mathematics like Algebra, Trig, Calculus, etc.  Same with reading comprehension.  Most 5 year olds aren't going to be able to pick up War and Peace, read it, and then prepare a 10 page book report about it.  So it isn't just that it's a function of age, it's a function of laying down the framework for future learning and future topics. 

Quote from: Regret on March 26, 2008, 02:13:45 AM
heh i didn't mean teaching kids of all ages the same thing, ofcourse the curriculum should be ageist. I was thinking more of getting kids to be more exposed to those younger and older then them.
Combining schools with community centres would be a good start, seeing some old geezers playing chess, some teens in the middle of hormonal turmoil and some so called grownups bitching about the weather or politics would be of much rgeater use then spending another couple of hours stuck in class ignoring mr johnson talking about history again. Maybe integrate it even more and get lots of older(and younger?) guest-teachers.

I would like to know what would happen if the surroundings of a child are a good representation of the society it will be expected to function in and the kind of roles it might wish/have to play when growing older.

I guess I still don't see a significant benefit to this.  Sure, if a kid was in complete isolation outside of school, this kind of idea would make sense.  I agree that community integration is very important, however, I don't think you need to necessarily do it with the education system.  Perhaps some community service projects within classes would be appropriate and help.  And I know many schools have these sorts of things in place.  The town where one of my colleagues lives, their high school actually has some community service worked into their curriculum which every student has to perform.  So I could see encouraging something like that would allow for some of this community integration, without sacrificing time for studies. 

I actually think it would be more beneficial if the community's local government got involved in this sort of thing.  Special events and activities that bring different people of different ages, cultures, etc., together.  Some do it, some don't.  It's a real challenge though in the economy we're in.  These sorts of things require money, and there is little to go around these days. 

I wouldn't be too sure about the math thing, as far as requiring a certain basis. I'm not an expert, but I recently read this delightfully eloquent rant about math education, by a mathematician and math teacher by the name of Paul Lockhart. Here's the pdf: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
He makes many interesting points about what passes for a mathematical education in American high schools, and one of his points is that the idea of math requiring a linear progression through material is not only false, but not actually followed in any logical way by the high school math curriculum. (He outlines said curriculum in the last two pages of the document, by the way. Mirth/horror galore.)

I call BS on the whole article.  I read a lot of complaining and whining but read very few, concrete solutions.  Kids don't go to school to become mathematicians.  They go to school to get a base level of knowledge to prepare them for what it is they want to do next.  If they want to become mathematicians, they will then get the appropriate, higher level knowledge of Mathematics in their undergraduate, and graduate studies.  Perhaps high schools could do some reorganization of the curriculum to integrate some sort of Mathematics Appreciation class that would address some of the things this guy is talking about.  But scrapping the whole math-curricula is not the solution, because quite honestly, it isn't the problem he thinks it is.  This sounds like a stuck-up Math geek complaining that not everyone is going to have his level of interest and wonder in mathematics. 

Erm, did you read the whole thing? Because he gets pretty concrete towards the end, after making his case.
And I mainly brought in the article in response to "Generally, you need to have a good foundation of basic mathematics before you can tackle more advanced mathematics like Algebra, Trig, Calculus, etc." - he addresses that argument pretty directly, iirc.

I read enough to catch his obvious bias.  He assumes much and doesn't give math teachers the benefit of the doubt that they can find creative ways to use the math curriculum to both teach the basic fundamentals AND engender interest in math.  I had that experience in my education, and I know many others who shared the same experiences.  Again, I'm all for adding some kind of Mathematics Appreciation class, to get the more metaphysical and heady aspects of math, but I personally think his criticism of how math is taught in the US public shool system is BS. 

Look, whatever, I'm not going to get into an argument with you about something you admit you didn't actually read entirely through. There's no point in that kind of argument.

Usefulness of (math) education and (math) teachers aside, the guy has a point in that very very little real math is thought in those classes.

Because "real" math is only possible after you learn the language and processes.


A physics professor once said to me, "I love math.  But I hate using numbers."

Thing is, much of the math nomenclature taught in classrooms simply doesn't exist outside those classrooms. People are taught literally useless information simply because it can be classed together with potentially useful information.

The same could be said of grammar.

Yeah, probably. But I don't know shit about English-language grammatical nomenclature.

OK, as someone who simply did not bother going to school after 3rd grade I have some input, here. Which is that as far as I can see, most of high school is a time-wasting exercise because I learned high school math in 5 weeks. All of it. 3 hours a week.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 27, 2008, 02:04:17 PM
Thing is, much of the math nomenclature taught in classrooms simply doesn't exist outside those classrooms. People are taught literally useless information simply because it can be classed together with potentially useful information.

sounds to me you think this information is "literally useless" and "doesn't exist outside the classroom" because you didn't get it.

i know a shitload of math, and hardly any of it except for the most obscure stuff is "literally useless"

being things like, decimals of Pi after the 50th, the banach-tarski paradox and uhhh well i suppose the theory behind automated theorem-proving is pretty much useless since it's not really getting anywhere [btw i haven't learned about either of these three things in school]

but the things they teach in school (at least the things they taught *me* in school) that are not part of a masters curriculum in mathematics, are in fact quite useful.

not to everybody, i agree. but just like most stuff i learned in geography and a lot of stuff in biology that just falls into the category "nice to know", is useless knowledge to me now. however, in my university study (computer sciences), it would have been highly inconvenient if i hadn't possessed the required basic math skills like differentiation, integration, trigonometry, matrices, solving of equations with multiple unknowns, etc. because my first year was 80% similar with the mathematics students first year, and they were just building on knowledge that was assumed as known from highschool.

had i picked biology, planology or environmental sciences for my study, then the stuff i learned about biology and geography would have come in very useful, and my mathematical background less so.

point is, and remains, i'm glad i know all this stuff. even the biology or geography stuff. cause it means i can call bullshit on people telling me bullshit.

You can do matricies?


Fuck.  That shit's rough.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 27, 2008, 02:04:17 PM
Thing is, much of the math nomenclature taught in classrooms simply doesn't exist outside those classrooms. People are taught literally useless information simply because it can be classed together with potentially useful information.

Who said math was supposed to be useful?  Math exists for math's sake.  The engineers and the physicists and the black chamber people found uses later.

I would say that ordinary people need at least algebra and formal logic even if they're going into a of non-math field.  Euclidean geometry would probably also be useful.  I personally am glad I got the opportunity to do linear algebra and multivariable calc in high school, although I recognize most people will never get to use it.  A basic understanding of statistics would be nice as well.

As far as sciences, everybody should have enough knowledge to critically evaluate "scientific" claims and identify stuff like the placebo effect, recognize that anyone trying to sell them a perpetual motion machine is full of shit, etc.  Everybody needs to be able to recognize a falsifiable theory, needs to understand the concept of a control group, etc.

Basics of biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology are also incredibly important.  If I had dollar for every time our newspaper printed absolute baloney about DNA or CO2 or whatever the scientific controversy of the day is...

Psychology is important because if you have a mind, you ought to know how it functions.  Knowledge of cognitive biases and social influence is critical.  We're talking bystander effect, pluralistic ignorance, conformity.  Everybody should know about the Asch Conformity Experiments and the Milgram experiments.

(True story - one of my physics professors was appointed to a national panel on energy.  This is what he had to say: "I was attending our meeting in August, and we were listening to the Vice Secretary of Energy give a presentation on burning Natural Gas as a clean alternative to other fuels. He kept mentioning how BURNING NATURAL GAS WOULD PRODUCE NO GREENHOUSE GASES.")

Education is irrelevant Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Idol) has all the answers you evar need

Oh yeah, and the ability to read Wikipedia and actually check the footnotes and page histories.  That needs to be taught in schools ASAP along with critically evaluating claims.

Quote from: Requiem on March 27, 2008, 06:50:43 PMWho said math was supposed to be useful?  Math exists for math's sake.  The engineers and the physicists and the black chamber people found uses later.

[citation needed]

Hrm...

See the Turing Machine.  A theoretical, impossible to build (or even approximate at the time) construct that was invented for the purpose of proving that some problems cannot be solved by logic.

That the concepts laid out became critical to computing and modern cryptography had nothing to do with Turing's original intent.

000, I was referring to the system's obsession with nomenclature, not with the actual math that gets taught. Here's part of what Lockhart says about it:

Quote from: Lockhart's LamentIn place of a natural problem context in which students can make decisions about what they
want their words to mean, and what notions they wish to codify, they are instead subjected to an
endless sequence of unmotivated and a priori "definitions." The curriculum is obsessed with
jargon and nomenclature, seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with
something to test the students on. No mathematician in the world would bother making these
senseless distinctions: 2 1/2 is a "mixed number," while 5/2 is an "improper fraction." They're
equal for crying out loud. They are the same exact numbers, and have the same exact properties.
Who uses such words outside of fourth grade?

I'll leave it to the mathematicians to explain why 2 1/2 is not the same as 5/2...

It is two ways of stating the same thing, though. It can logically be expressed either way.

Not manipulated in the same way though.

Unless you first change it from one to the other. Then you can.

Quote from: Requiem on March 27, 2008, 08:33:05 PMHrm...

See the Turing Machine.  A theoretical, impossible to build (or even approximate at the time) construct that was invented for the purpose of proving that some problems cannot be solved by logic.

That the concepts laid out became critical to computing and modern cryptography had nothing to do with Turing's original intent.

okay, but these events are rare, and they hardly ever apply to math taught in high schools, before people get to decide if they want to get into math -- because taking into account the context in which the turing machine (and especially the Halting problem) were discovered, it is not at all that useless.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 27, 2008, 08:40:04 PM000, I was referring to the system's obsession with nomenclature, not with the actual math that gets taught. Here's part of what Lockhart says about it:

Quote from: Lockhart's LamentIn place of a natural problem context in which students can make decisions about what they
want their words to mean, and what notions they wish to codify, they are instead subjected to an
endless sequence of unmotivated and a priori “definitions.” The curriculum is obsessed with
jargon and nomenclature, seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with
something to test the students on. No mathematician in the world would bother making these
senseless distinctions: 2 1/2 is a “mixed number,” while 5/2 is an “improper fraction.” They’re
equal for crying out loud. They are the same exact numbers, and have the same exact properties.
Who uses such words outside of fourth grade?

this has nothing to do with math. as you say, it's just a manner of nomenclature.

please explain me why this "obsession" is wrong. for any topic worth working with and thinking about, it is tremendously useful to have some definitions to wrap more complex ideas into a simpler terms (symbol).

By the time you get to the high school level, almost all the math taught was made for the sake of math with practical applications coming later (Calculus depends on if you believe Newton really had already developed it, or at least started it, before he started working on gravity.  Even then, somebody else had developed it without practical application in time to publish concurrently).  The only real exception to this I know of in math is 4 operation math (addition/subtraction/multiplication/division.

Even the 0 was an esoteric concept before it was practical.

The difference between 2 1/2 and 5/2 is that 2 1/2 looks like 21/2 if your handwriting is bad, and 2 1/2 is the easiest to look at and go, Oh, that number is halfway between 2 and 3.

Quote from: triple zero on March 28, 2008, 01:51:09 AM
please explain me why this "obsession" is wrong. for any topic worth working with and thinking about, it is tremendously useful to have some definitions to wrap more complex ideas into a simpler terms (symbol).

It's wrong because it teaches kids math in a fragmented way.  They learn how to manipulate numbers, then how to manipulate fractions, then mixed numbers, then irregular fractions, then integers, then rational numbers, etc.  It's not the progression from less complicated to more complicated that's the problem.

The problem comes in when a student looks at problem and only knows how to handle it if it's a normal number but not a fraction - they have to be retaught that all the basic algebra rules still work if a fraction is involved.  The don't see math as a single consistent system but as a whole bunch of little arbitrary constructs, and when a little piece changes that are totally lost.

Okay. So. It seems to me that this argument is about the wrong thing. Maybe its just me.

I have a linguistics degree. I program computers for a living. The most important thing I learned in school? How to learn!

Really, I think it's sort of immaterial WHAT you teach people in school. It's nice if it's something interesting (they'll want to work at it more) or useful later (useful things are always, you know, useful), but they key is not learning (read: memorizing) some equation, but knowing that, if you don't know about a topic, there are ways to find out and if you don't want to look it up every time you need that piece of information, ways to help yourself remember.

I didn't realize that this was the point of education until I'd gotten my degree already, but either I had a happy accident and learned it anyway, the system worked, or I figured it out on some kind of instinctual level (or, I suppose, some confluence of more than one of those).

Here's the wonderful paradox: Schools should teach you how to learn (and, thus, how to think... implied "for yourself"?)... but that's actually BAD for The Machine, right? Thinking cogs are bad, right?

I think The Machine benefits from overtesting because people learn that leaning is hard, and school sucks and thinking is rough work and, man... flipping burgers is easy. If you can be socially engineered into having negative associations with using your frickin' brain, you are going to be easier to tell what to do ("Trust us. We know better..."). So maybe this is why national governments have become so over-emphatic about testing and regulation? They're benefiting from ruining their own educational systems?

I mean--people who don't get conditioned by the education system being jacked up were probably not going to need all that hand holding anyway, so there's no loss if you teach them how to think, you can always catch them with, say, the money trap or the need-to-be-accepted trap (which is nasty, since it's biological, to some extent) or any of the other ones laid out.


117

This is the correct motorcycle, 117. (Golden Applesauce too, btw)

I just honestly don't think learning is something that can taught by coercion. My learning skills improved much more quickly in the four years at the Sudbury school, where my learning was my responsibility (as compared to the eight years I spent in more traditional schools).
Schools that try to teach learning will generally fail to do so (en masse) because learning is something you are born with and can only improve when you care to improve it. By turning learning into a chore, schools make it more difficult to learn because they make it less desirable.
And as you said, 117, this is very good for authoritarianism because it encourages people to turn on their ears and shut off their brains.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 28, 2008, 11:45:47 AM
I just honestly don't think learning is something that can taught by coercion.

Coercion?  Srsly?  I don't ever remember being "coerced" when I was in the public school system.  I call total and utter BS on this notion. 

QuoteMy learning skills improved much more quickly in the four years at the Sudbury school, where my learning was my responsibility (as compared to the eight years I spent in more traditional schools).

Perhaps this had more to do with you than the school system.  Perhaps the Sudburry school system was better for you, but that is one example, and cannot be generalised to the whole.  But I think you know that. 

QuoteSchools that try to teach learning will generally fail to do so (en masse) because learning is something you are born with and can only improve when you care to improve it. By turning learning into a chore, schools make it more difficult to learn because they make it less desirable.

Wait, so if learning can only improve when the individual cares to improve it how can you then pin their failure to learn on the public school system?  If what you posit is true (and I'm not saying it is) then isn't what the public school system does become a moot point, because the individual has already put up the barrier to learning.  So which is it, the individual or the school?  You seem to be wavering back and forth on this point. 

It may be in some cases that the public school system does become a tool of The Machine, but that is different then saying the public school system, is inherently a tool of The Machine.  I believe whether or not it does become a tool will be based upon the individual community or society.  I've lived and worked in communities that have wonderful public school systems.  They have developed innovative approaches to education that engage the students.  ONe in particular, has worked in a community service program that encourages the students to get out in the community, to become a part of it.  This is a very anti-Machine thing to do if you ask me.  I've worked in another school where they have a program that has the kids dealing with civics and working with the local government on local policies.  So I will continue to call BS on this generalized premise because I have witnessed ample first hand evidence that is quite contrary to it. 

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 28, 2008, 12:18:34 PM
Coercion?  Srsly?  I don't ever remember being "coerced" when I was in the public school system.  I call total and utter BS on this notion.

Well I clearly remember being coerced. I remember many mornings in elementary school where I was crying outside the school gate, begging my mom to let me go back home with her. I really didn't like going there.
Of course my sister, who loved school, wasn't overtly coerced to go there. There was no need.
Now, of course my parents could have let me stay home. But this would have been technically illegal in Israel (not that they were likely to be prosecuted or anything) and highly inconvenient for them.
And then at school, when I often wanted to just read a book I was told to shut the book and listen up. I was given no choice about it.
I could give less obvious examples of coercion but I think this illustrates my point. Your milage may vary, of course.

QuoteWait, so if learning can only improve when the individual cares to improve it how can you then pin their failure to learn on the public school system?  If what you posit is true (and I'm not saying it is) then isn't what the public school system does become a moot point, because the individual has already put up the barrier to learning.  So which is it, the individual or the school?  You seem to be wavering back and forth on this point.

No, like I said, by making learning into a chore, schools actually manage to impede a great deal of learning. Of course some people remain resilient, but the general trend seems to be that making people learn things when they're interested in other things altogether, causes them to lose interest in learning and dumb themselves down. Some environments are different to others, of course, but this seems to me the general trend in education.

QuoteIt may be in some cases that the public school system does become a tool of The Machine, but that is different then saying the public school system, is inherently a tool of The Machine.  I believe whether or not it does become a tool will be based upon the individual community or society.  I've lived and worked in communities that have wonderful public school systems.  They have developed innovative approaches to education that engage the students.  ONe in particular, has worked in a community service program that encourages the students to get out in the community, to become a part of it.  This is a very anti-Machine thing to do if you ask me.  I've worked in another school where they have a program that has the kids dealing with civics and working with the local government on local policies.  So I will continue to call BS on this generalized premise because I have witnessed ample first hand evidence that is quite contrary to it. 

You're right in a sense. But even the most innovative traditional schools still strongly rely on authoritarian top-down learning, where the teacher (or whatever authority figures are provided) is in authority and is not to be questioned. Even schools where teachers challenge their students to challenge their authority do not escape this trap -- they still rely on the teacher's authority to motivate the students to question said authority. You know what I mean? The teacher-student relationship is inherently a tool of the Machine, in that it discourages independence and encourages obedience. The only way to escape this situation is by dissolving that authoritarian relationship, as far as I can see.

Quote from: st.verbatim on March 28, 2008, 01:43:37 PM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 28, 2008, 12:18:34 PM
Coercion?  Srsly?  I don't ever remember being "coerced" when I was in the public school system.  I call total and utter BS on this notion.

Well I clearly remember being coerced. I remember many mornings in elementary school where I was crying outside the school gate, begging my mom to let me go back home with her. I really didn't like going there.
Of course my sister, who loved school, wasn't overtly coerced to go there. There was no need.
Now, of course my parents could have let me stay home. But this would have been technically illegal in Israel (not that they were likely to be prosecuted or anything) and highly inconvenient for them.
And then at school, when I often wanted to just read a book I was told to shut the book and listen up. I was given no choice about it.
I could give less obvious examples of coercion but I think this illustrates my point. Your milage may vary, of course.

Yeah, it illustrates the point that it isn't the system, it's the kid.  Your sister wanted to go to school, you didn't.  That isn't the system, it's the kid.  And not reading a book while the teacher is teaching is called courtesy for the instructor, it isn't coercion.  Of course you don't have to pay that respect to the teacher, but I'm certain they'd be quite appreciative if you did. 

QuoteNo, like I said, by making learning into a chore, schools actually manage to impede a great deal of learning. Of course some people remain resilient, but the general trend seems to be that making people learn things when they're interested in other things altogether, causes them to lose interest in learning and dumb themselves down. Some environments are different to others, of course, but this seems to me the general trend in education.

Yeah, some kids are going to look at it like a chore, and others won't.  I liked learning, so I never viewed it as a chore.  Other kids would rather be outside throwing rocks at cars or fishing.  That's what kids are like.  It isn't the fault of the education system, it's the way kids are.  Many schools have one-on-one mentors or tutors that will try to work with the kids who want nothing to do with learning.  But it's like the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, etc., etc.,  It is the goal of the education to teach the kids who want to learn.  They can't be held responsible for the stubborn and unwilling.  So if there is a trend, perhaps it is starting at home with parents, perhaps it's that kids are being cared for by television and video games while Mom is working the second job at Denny's so they can pay the mortgage.  Perhaps it is this societal deterioration that is creating kids who don't give a fuck about anything, and then what, you expect the education system to become Dr. Phil and fix them?  I think there are problems, but I think you have fingered the wrong criminal. 

QuoteYou're right in a sense. But even the most innovative traditional schools still strongly rely on authoritarian top-down learning, where the teacher (or whatever authority figures are provided) is in authority and is not to be questioned. Even schools where teachers challenge their students to challenge their authority do not escape this trap -- they still rely on the teacher's authority to motivate the students to question said authority. You know what I mean? The teacher-student relationship is inherently a tool of the Machine, in that it discourages independence and encourages obedience. The only way to escape this situation is by dissolving that authoritarian relationship, as far as I can see.

Oh sure, bedlam in the classroom will fix everything.  I hear they are going after the U.S. Secretary of Education.  Maybe you should apply for the job.   :roll:

Are we still talking about schools?

@RWHN:

1.
So let me get this straight - I'm forced to go somewhere, forced to sit down, forced to listen to someone I don't have any personal interest in hearing, and then if I prefer to take out a book and use my brain for a bit I'm to blame for being disrespectful? Well, fuck that shit. It's not particularly respectful to not let me stay home and read like I want to, why the hell should I be respectful in return? Respect isn't a matter of authority. You have to give respect to get it.

2.
The point is, that by turning learning into something you are expected to do for others -- be it for your teacher, or for your parents, or for your grades -- you make it very likely this learning will turn into a chore. Sure there are people like you, like my sister, like other people I know too, who use this as an opportunity and actually enjoy it. But the whole system of external motivation is largely counter-productive.
A friend of mine is reading this book called Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation (http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-What-Understanding-Self-Motivation/dp/0140255265). I'll borrow it once he's done I think. He says these guys tried the following:
They gave test groups 3-D puzzles to solve. One group was promised a dollar for each puzzle solved. One group was threatened with some kind of punishment if they don't solve the puzzles in time. One group was just given the puzzles and left on their own.
Guess which group performed best?
The one with no external incentive. Apparently, because nobody was trying to convince them to solve the puzzles to avoid punishment or to get rewarded, they really got into the puzzles, solving them for fun.

So sure, you can say it's up to the individual and I agree, to an extent. But when trying to understand a system you have to think in more generalized terms, and apparently when a system tries external motivation that actually is statistically counter-productive.

3.
Classroom? I don't want no classroom. Classrooms are only necessary if you need to group students together to put them together with teachers. Get rid of the teacher-student relationship, and you can do away with classrooms as well.

I'm actually speaking from experience here. It works beautifully, in my experience. Every Sudbury school I have visited was more relaxed and peaceful than the norm at the schools I went to before we founded Sudbury Jerusalem. (Israeli schools are full of violence and bedlam, more so than most other Western countries, but I can only speak from my own experience.)
If bedlam is what you're afraid of, you should go visit a Sudbury school. See for yourself how terribly chaotic a school is when you do away with teachers.

St Vert, can you recognize that the above post was made from a completely subjective POV?  Every point you made essentially said, "I don't like it, so we should apply what I don't like universally."

You even admit that people like your sister, RWHN, and myself (well, I didn't say that I did well in public school -- "I did well in public school") had no problems with public school... but for some reason you think your lone subjective negative experience trumps at least 3 others' positive experiences.

Which is one of the points I've been trying to make here.  Yes the Sudbury thing worked for you SV, where public school didn't.  Obviously there are others in your situation, I mean obviously there is a supply of that kind of education being supplied to a demand.

HOWEVER, that does not mean because SOME flourish better under that kind of set-up, that other set-ups, such as public education, does not allow some to flourish as well.  I mean, as you are a living testament to Sudbury, I am a living testament to public education.  I guarantee you, if you had your way and replaced public education with the Sudbury model, you would have students who would not do well.  There would be students who would rebel against that system, who would wish they were doing something else.  Because the structure that is in place in a public school system DOES benefit many children and help them to learn.  If that wasn't the case, we TRULY would have many, many, many more brainless idiots walking around.  That a nation is able to advance with a work force dominated by public High School graduates, is a testament to this being so. 

So as in many things, to each their own, but just because your system ain't broke doesn't mean you have to try to fix mine. 

@LMNO:
Of course I know I was being subjective. I did it on purpose. Like I said, I can only speak from my own experience.
My opinion is supported by the experience of others, and if you ask my sister I know she'll agree with me on these matters, even though she loved the elementary school we both went to. But if I'm going to use anecdotal evidence, I prefer to use my own. Wherever I am aware of studies that can support me I mention them (like that book), but mostly I'm left to rely on personal experience.

Anyhow, I don't think my own negative experience somehow invalidates your positive experience. I was mentioning my negative experience to illustrate a point -- that coercion is present in the school system. I applaud you guys and all those who had a good experience at school for making the best of it. I wish I had found ways to get along with the system, it would have saved me a lot of pain. But a coercive system is a coercive system, even if many of its subjects learn to get along with it well.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 28, 2008, 03:43:08 PM
if you had your way and replaced public education with the Sudbury model

Where did I ever say that's what I want?
The opposite is true. A few months ago a group in Switzerland wanted me to come help them transform a school to a Sudbury school, as a paid job for a month or two. I told them I think it's an attempt doomed to failure. I was right -- they wrote me a month ago after three months of silence that it fell through. You can't just replace schools with Sudbury schools, and if a government would try, it would be the singly worst thing to happen to education in the post-WWII Western world.

I don't believe Sudbury schooling, traditional schooling, Montessori schooling, Waldorf schooling, Freenet schooling, or any other kind of schooling should be imposed on the entire population.

Yes, I strongly believe Sudbury schools are the best schools around today. But even more strongly, I believe that no government has the right to decide how children are educated.

 :asplode:

Quote from: Cain on March 28, 2008, 02:52:13 PM
Are we still talking about schools?

Okay. This is a valid point. Can we talk about a new trap now? What about bear traps? They're definitely tools of the machine.


117

hmmmm beer...

(http://quotes4all.net/homer_simpson_beer.gif)

Discordianism.
It's an obvious ploy to turn otherwise malcontented people with the potential to network outward and inflict damage to the machine, into harmless postulators of nonsense who will investigate anything from circus clowns to their own feces, find a few correlations between their experiment and larger societal patterns, then promptly publish their findings into a Kleenex and file it in the nearest wastebasket.

Quote from: vexati0n on March 30, 2008, 08:05:41 AM
Discordianism.
It's an obvious ploy to turn otherwise malcontented people with the potential to network outward and inflict damage to the machine, into harmless postulators of nonsense who will investigate anything from circus clowns to their own feces, find a few correlations between their experiment and larger societal patterns, then promptly publish their findings into a Kleenex and file it in the nearest wastebasket.

Truth discovered.

Quote from: vexati0n on March 30, 2008, 08:05:41 AM
Discordianism.
It's an obvious ploy to turn otherwise malcontented people with the potential to network outward and inflict damage to the machine, into harmless postulators of nonsense who will investigate anything from circus clowns to their own feces, find a few correlations between their experiment and larger societal patterns, then promptly publish their findings into a Kleenex and file it in the nearest wastebasket.

I think you may be right, we must burn our copies of the PD and Illuminatus.

Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

Quote from: vexati0n on March 30, 2008, 08:05:41 AM
Discordianism.
It's an obvious ploy to turn otherwise malcontented people with the potential to network outward and inflict damage to the machine, into harmless postulators of nonsense who will investigate anything from circus clowns to their own feces, find a few correlations between their experiment and larger societal patterns, then promptly publish their findings into a Kleenex and file it in the nearest wastebasket.

OMF Noooooo!! ive been had, my whole life is a lie......



wait... nevermind i knew that  :)




but really its a scary thought hey. though it would take some impressively inteligent super-secret-power to pull it off, but hey might just be true, and ALL the pro's and cons in modern society, even those "obviously" oppposed to the system, are/have been carefully contructed and nurtured of the years.

In a sense, it doesn't even require any direct, conscious effort on the part of a government for Discordianism to be a trap set by the Machine. It's a trap because of the way it can become organized for some people. People turn it into a trap because they refuse to go anywhere that's not a trap set by the Machine.

Quote from: barumunk on April 01, 2008, 08:27:04 AM

Quote from: vexati0n on March 30, 2008, 08:05:41 AM
Discordianism.
It's an obvious ploy to turn otherwise malcontented people with the potential to network outward and inflict damage to the machine, into harmless postulators of nonsense who will investigate anything from circus clowns to their own feces, find a few correlations between their experiment and larger societal patterns, then promptly publish their findings into a Kleenex and file it in the nearest wastebasket.

OMF Noooooo!! ive been had, my whole life is a lie......



wait... nevermind i knew that  :)




but really its a scary thought hey. though it would take some impressively inteligent super-secret-power to pull it off, but hey might just be true, and ALL the pro's and cons in modern society, even those "obviously" oppposed to the system, are/have been carefully contructed and nurtured of the years.

Sad, that nobody can be told what the matrix is.

Quote from: Verbatim on March 30, 2008, 10:38:31 PM
Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

It's times like this I wonder what we're all doing here in the first place.

It's best not to think about it really. 

Quote from: TheLastLump on May 08, 2008, 03:22:25 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on March 30, 2008, 10:38:31 PM
Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

It's times like this I wonder what we're all doing here in the first place.

For some, the PD is like meeting the Buddah in the road.

Quote from: LMNO on May 08, 2008, 03:26:24 PM

Quote from: TheLastLump on May 08, 2008, 03:22:25 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on March 30, 2008, 10:38:31 PM
Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

It's times like this I wonder what we're all doing here in the first place.

For some, the PD is like meeting the Buddah in the road.

Well said. 8)

Bump.  This is good shit.

It took a fairly predictable turn when we went off on that tangent about education, but I think the first few pages are excellent.

Quote
The money game, the idea that more money (above and beyond what you actually need)=better.  One of the stronger traps, as most people only manage to get it by being 100% in tune with the machine.  Corporate drones and artistic sellouts.

looking back on this, it kinda sounds like I mean corporations are the machine.  On the contrary, the 'more profit' demand traps corporations in the machine more than it does people.

I would also qualify my statements by suggesting conscious use of game theory, decision theory, strategy etc by some people and denying them to everyone else (via hiding them in little known disciplines like strategic studies, military history, applied mathematics, analytics philosophy etc) is the issue.

I mean, how can you expect everyone to come to sensible decisions without giving them the tools by which to do so?  If you teach a few people strategic methods of thinking and planning and let everyone else go on without knowing, you're creating a technocratic elite (adept at manipulating people into particular constrained decision areas) whether you intended to or not.

I can't believe I missed what turned into a semi-education thread.

I think its a bit daft to say the school system is collapsing. I do think though that it could work a lot better. I suggest strongly the two TED videos by Sir Ken Robinson and his book as a blueprint of where we should be moving. Also, for interested people, check out a place called 'High Tech High'.

School IS RIDICULOUSLY important. A firm education is one of the reasons educated nations tend to stay on top. That said, there's a lot to be fixed. One thing is that we live in a world were students are ALWAYS reading writing, communicating etc through mobile phones, ipods, ipads, whatever. Yet we still have analogue schooling, built on an infinite process of delayed gratification. It's not an easy system to be in, but there is a difference that a teacher can make, if they're willing to try.

Cram is half right; it is partly about teaching acceptable behaviour. But in truth, nobody cares if you dye your hair pink or dance in the halls. I actually don't oppose this facet of schooling because this is more about teaching kids, no, if he pushes past you you CAN'T just yell COCK repeatedly down the hall... no, looking at you funny doesn't mean you can break a ruler over his head... yes, i know you want to discuss the porn you saw last night, but there's a time and place for these conversations.

Basically helping kids become socially acceptable enough to make friends, stay out of jail and keep jobs.

Anyway, thats' my 2c.

No its not, (edit) just read more;

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 27, 2008, 07:35:52 PM
Oh yeah, and the ability to read Wikipedia and actually check the footnotes and page histories.  That needs to be taught in schools ASAP along with critically evaluating claims.

YES! There is some of this going on, it's called (or we call it) critical literacy. The main focus is on reading into what the author believes and how that influences the work, but I certainly try to hit this point hard. I tell my students Wiki is a GREAT starting point, but once you've had a flip through, use the reference rather than the article.

Quote from: Nigel on March 27, 2008, 05:59:02 PM
OK, as someone who simply did not bother going to school after 3rd grade I have some input, here. Which is that as far as I can see, most of high school is a time-wasting exercise because I learned high school math in 5 weeks. All of it. 3 hours a week.

Nigel, I'm curious, what's the story here?

Quote from: OneSeventeen on March 28, 2008, 07:57:43 AM
Okay. So. It seems to me that this argument is about the wrong thing. Maybe its just me.

I have a linguistics degree. I program computers for a living. The most important thing I learned in school? How to learn!

Really, I think it's sort of immaterial WHAT you teach people in school. It's nice if it's something interesting (they'll want to work at it more) or useful later (useful things are always, you know, useful), but they key is not learning (read: memorizing) some equation, but knowing that, if you don't know about a topic, there are ways to find out and if you don't want to look it up every time you need that piece of information, ways to help yourself remember.

I didn't realize that this was the point of education until I'd gotten my degree already, but either I had a happy accident and learned it anyway, the system worked, or I figured it out on some kind of instinctual level (or, I suppose, some confluence of more than one of those).

Here's the wonderful paradox: Schools should teach you how to learn (and, thus, how to think... implied "for yourself"?)... but that's actually BAD for The Machine, right? Thinking cogs are bad, right?

I think The Machine benefits from overtesting because people learn that leaning is hard, and school sucks and thinking is rough work and, man... flipping burgers is easy. If you can be socially engineered into having negative associations with using your frickin' brain, you are going to be easier to tell what to do ("Trust us. We know better..."). So maybe this is why national governments have become so over-emphatic about testing and regulation? They're benefiting from ruining their own educational systems?

I agree with part one, but not part two. The issue is I think that certain types of intelligence (using the term loosely) are valued and some aren't. If you can find complex numerical patterns that's smart. If you can write an essay on history that's bright. If you can right a story that's good. If you can make complex visual art, that's quaint. And if you can spin an intense track on a guitar, well, that'll make a nice hobby one day.

So some kids with some talents get that feedback all the time that they're smart and good, and others don't get that message. and the message a lot of kids get is 'school is hard. its' for smart people. I'm not smart. i can't do smart things.'

This varies by school depending on how effective different messages are.

Also, I LOVE alternative schools, but it's epically a different strokes thing.

AND by way of apology I'm going to add a non education post here too.

Aesthetics.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of looking different, or like an environmentalist, or a punk, or whatever without embracing the ideology on anything more that a superficial level.

Heh, I remember this.  I think I've argued with Vert about schools as often as I've argued with Rat about drugs. 

analytic prejudice

atomised individualism, as was mentioned earlier.

and conventions.