I think Scilosopher makes a valid point in identifying the purpose of education with social hierarchy, e.g. kids learn to do what they're told or suffer the consequences. As for his fear of ranting and raving, I personally would like to hear more. Dreamsa places value on the basic requirement (in school and during exams) of having a good memory. She refers to professionals, such as doctors, who have to remember a lotta stuff. Not so. In today's hightech environment, anyone can obtain instant up-to-date information (summarized) on any subject under the sun, merely by keying in to the Internet.
John thanks for the encouragement. I'm just going to reply here, but I'm also curious how people feel in general when the topic of a thread evolves into something new. Should it be restarted as a new thread or is that not really important? Anyway, I think the major problem with education in todays democratic societies is that we neglect the role of educating people in a fashion such that they can make the decisions necessary to guide our world into the future. Education itself (at least in western societies) comes from a tradition of educating nobles and wealthy people. These are exactly the type of people who don't want change. Furthermore, as technology was not advancing as rapidly and world travel was limited education was geared towards a fixed and parochial view of the world. Therefore even though education was aimed to a large extent to make people able to make decisions and lead it was in a context ill suited to todays reality. Then how does education get modified? Typically changes in education are driven by practical immediate aspects like post-graduation employment. Furthermore, they're driven by short term evaluation. It takes time to create and debug a new approach to education and most (understandably so) wouldn't risk their children in a new type of system. Incremental changes to a system starting in the wrong place are unlikely to get you where you want to go in a reasonable amount of time. The rapid advance of science and technology here is a problem instead of a boon. With a populace and government that by and large doesn't understand science, the whole decision making process is being improperly guided. Furthermore, our main ability as a species to adapt on faster than generational time scales is not effectively taken care of by our education system where it takes a good fraction of a generation to train a new set of teachers. Soon we'll be driving our car so fast through the night that those short sited headlights will do no good and a crash seems inevitable. I certainly think and hope we can come up with a solution, but it's not an easy problem and there seems to be no system set up to bring about the necessary change and if there is it certainly is not a well funded or publicized one. Sometimes I think the US is the biggest recipe for disaster ever. We are stuck with a system where it is difficult to "succeed" without spending so much time on some very narrow goal that our role in government is difficult to do justice to (especially with the trends in journalism and news). At the same time our economic success as a country makes us exceptionally powerful technologicaly and economically. It wouldn't be so bad if politicians could cooperate, but that is very hard to do with the range of opinions a democracy provides. Plato actually thought all democracies were doomed to fail because as people's views diverge it becomes almost impossible to effectively integrate them into a coherent government. I hope he's wrong because I like at least imagining I have some say in government. Not that I ever really like any of the candidates. ok I just realized how off topic I got even for speaking on education in general. I'm gonna shut up now ...
If we're still talkin' about education, including the trauma of exams, I don't think a new thread is necessary. But if you wanna bring in government inefficiencies and failures, that's an entirely different matter. My opinion of education, based on my uneducated daddy's wisdom, has not changed from the time I was a captive victim to years of sitting on a high-school advisory board (formerly known as PTA). It's not what we learn in school that's important, it's exercising the brain. During the last century, graduates were unprepared for the workplace and it appears there will be little change in this century. What really burns my ass is the lack of quality teaching. In other words, I feel that if a teacher is unable to create an interest, even a passion for the subject, then he/she is in the wrong occupation, and might do a lot less harm as a cleaner or parking lot attendant. Personally, I managed to graduate from highschool by an exam margin of less than 1 percent (at the time, 60% was minimum requirement). Was I dumb or disinterested? Well, with an IQ above 150, everybody agreed it had to be the latter. Peace and goodwill in the new year.
I was still talking about education, but it seemed that the discussion was oriented towards the design and implementation of educational systems from the seguey of how exams fit into them. I just took it a step farther by bringing in the intent and forces which shape such a system. Personally I think that education should not solely be oriented towards post graduation employment, but that it plays an important role in shaping people's thoughts regarding society. If brain exercise is the sole goal it should consist of a lot of chess, bridge, risk, etc games as that would keep people more involved interested and thinking. Part of the problem with teachers getting students interested is that they have to teach the same material over and over. I maintained my interest and got the teachers revved up by trying to prove that my teachers were wrong or not entirely clear on certain subtle distinctions. Believe me that can be very fun ... and you learn the material in great detail. If done in the wrong way it can make for a miserable situation though ...
Hi! I am a he but not a she!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Even though technology advances quickly and new knowledge are appearing quickly and the schools cannot catch up with this, basic knowledge are still needed. In schools, we learn these basics things so that afterwards we can continue to study new things by ourselves! With exams, it can be tested that whether the students can master these basic knowledge necessary for further learning. e.g. when you train a physics students, there is no exam to test him, how can you know what he learnt? He need to master the mathematics and learn the thinking method so that he can become a physicist! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
To go from the start of this thread, I suppose you should look at what an Examination or Test is actually about. They are there to make sure that you have gained a Sufficient enough understanding of the subject, to the point of taking the information in and that you could answer on a subject without aid of notes. Of course this is all very well, but it's known in later life that Memory can play mean tricks. One wrong input can equal a lifetime of deceit for an answer, where a falsehood is mistaken as a truth. Or for the shear fact of old age, memory can degrade to the point of not remembering. With the recent upsurge in use of the internet I would personally merit people on the usuage of "Research" when it comes to a subject they know nothing about rather than Carnal knowledge. For you might come across something you know nothing about or you might have forgotten certain pieces of information upon a subject, but still have an understanding about the topic your concerning yourself with. I suppose the main point for having an Examination is to make sure that people have similar philosophical understandings, to allow easier methods of transversing ideas and explainations. For instance you learn of Schrodingers cat, but if you knew nothing of Schrodingers cat, could you relate to an explaination of relativity in a multiworlds scenario?
