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A branch-off the conspiracy theory thread for all your whines/rants/debates on the school curriculum and school teaching methods and approaches in the world.

I am advocating for mandatory classes in philosophy, not the deep stuff, but just logic.

I left the education sector in the UK about 10 years ago. The two main reasons were the whole academy / free school fiasco, and that no-one knew what to do with IT (my field) - we were either doing stuff that's 10 - 15 years out of date (typing, databases, etc.), or would be obsolete in 6 months (app development with specific bespoke software).


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Not Online!!! wrote:
I am advocating for mandatory classes in philosophy, not the deep stuff, but just logic.

Life skill in general need more teaching time.

I recall my IT classes at even Alevel (which is well over 10 years now) were mostly learning "buzzwords" for how to work with IT (eg you'd use a firewall or a GUI or something for such and such a situation). They were rather "tickbox" style questions too where you'd get several "similar" sounding buzzwords and had to pick the exact same one.

The other half was mostly spending forever making a basic database in Access. The thing was it wasn't hard, but it took forever because you had to screenshot and document every single step. Which with Word and floppydisks of the day took ages. You fast learned to have the whole thing in laods of different documents so that adding a single line in one page didn't end up with every image in the following pages jumping to crazy positions.

It didn't help that our IT teacher went on leave during that time and our replacement was a lecturer who was mostly useless (he actually managed to miss an entire module for the other class and spent most of our lessons just browsing the net).



Suffice it to say that IT then sounds like its not gone very far. Thing is we are easily at a point now where most kids are going to be more IT Literate than course material. AT least for most basic things.









I'd also very much support life skills being a class. The problem with relying on parents to teach that is when you've parents who get it wrong. Students should get basic education in life skills.


One other thing I recall my maths teacher regularly saying was that students struggle with "advanced maths" not because they can't do it, but because the basics are moved off too quickly. The basic flow of advanced maths is just basic maths taken to a new level; but when your basic maths isn't second nature its much easier for students to get confused in what they are doing. They trip up on a basic point which then confuses them on how the more complex interaction works. Or on how they can link together multiple simple points into a more complex equation.

I think most people agree that citizens need to use more critical thinking, but I"m not sure this is something we can teach. Or, more specifically, we can teach (at least some) people how to think critically, but we can't make them actually do it.

And most people have a solid grasp on logic, it's the assumptions and facts that are most often flawed.

Speaking as someone approaching 40 my recollection of the Scottish education system was that it was well-intentioned but often fundamentally flawed. As an example, consider that we didn't start learning a foreign language until we were 12 or 13, seven years after starting formal education. Compounding that is the issue Overread points out where schools often don't spend enough time on the fundamentals. So in our case most of the class weren't clear on how their own language worked and didn't have enough of an understanding of adverbs, prepositions and participles and so on to allow effective teaching of a foreign language. It's kind of like trying to teach someone piano without first explaining how to read music - possible but definitely not the easiest way to approach things.

There's also too much emphasis on exams and teaching things that are examinable. I suspect that's why the fundamentals are so quickly skipped over. It's much easier to write (and mark) exam questions about specific concepts in physics than it is to write them about the scientific method, for example. Yet it's these exact fundamental deficiencies that universities often spend so much time trying to correct.

 Polonius wrote:
I think most people agree that citizens need to use more critical thinking, but I"m not sure this is something we can teach. Or, more specifically, we can teach (at least some) people how to think critically, but we can't make them actually do it.

And most people have a solid grasp on logic, it's the assumptions and facts that are most often flawed.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. However if you don't lead the horse to water they might never find it.

Also don't forget there are lot of people who use "I'm not trained/educated in X" as a mental crutch to not invest any time in X. It's also something that can undermine their self confidence. I think basic teaching in how to research a news story; how to "cross reference" and indeed in todays world how to use a search engine are very important lessons.

Indeed google is fantastic, but you have to know both how to use it and how it uses you. How it will select articles based on your search history patterns to better suit "you" which might mean its giving you bias in search results. How to frame questions to get closer to the answers you want. Even something so basic as teaching people that if they don't know the answer, google might not actually be the best tool since you will get lots of results that you won't have the understanding to sort through.

Even something so simple as how to check two or three different newspapers can be important for some people who otherwise might never think to look outside of one news source.


We live in an age of information overload. Where information is thrust at us from every angle and where any person with an afternoon can publish a website on the net; where the top result is not the most accurate but simply the one with the best key wording; search engine optimising and ultimately the "most popular".

Heck how many of us honestly look far past the first page of results when googling up a topic?

When my children started getting to elementary school I was surprised that they had some lectures in what roughly translates as "social behaviour" that we did not have when I was a child. Basically it was about friendly and polite behaviour, solving conflicts, standing up for yourself and others and empathy. Not a bad idea I think

Slipspace wrote:
. So in our case most of the class weren't clear on how their own language worked and didn't have enough of an understanding of adverbs, prepositions and participles and so on to allow effective teaching of a foreign language. It's kind of like trying to teach someone piano without first explaining how to read music - possible but definitely not the easiest way to approach things.

So much this. I always think that because we speak english we end up being taught it fairly badly. We also don't get the reinforcement. At a young age we might actually know adverbs pretty well in parrot fashion. Give students a summer holiday or three and a few years never mentioning them again and suddenly adverbs in the French lessons are confusing because you're not quite sure what they are exactly (beyond perhaps a few examples) and then you're trying to use that to cobble together how they work in a separate language when you really aren't sure how they work in your own.

To keep it from breaking the politics rules, I'll just say I hate the way education is managed and funded in my country. It's a nonsensical delineation of funding and decision making responsibilities that produces pitiful results, but will probably never be fixed because 'murica'. The American education system enshrines anti-intellectualism into it's structure in disastrous ways, in the one institution that should be completely pro-intellectual.

To keep to a simple, and I would hope non-controversial example, Local/State school boards should not be ruling on what should be taught in the classrooms. A bunch of stay at home parents who never graduated highschool and are sitting on a committee because they ranted at the last town hall about how unfair it is that evolution is taught in school but not intelligent design should not exist and sure as hell should have zero decision making power on what teachers teach. You might as well put the last lady who asked for your manager to discuss her completely unreasonable request in charge of a nuclear power plant. At least then the disaster would be spectacular and maybe become an HBO series some day with great production values.

I'll go through and read the thread properly later, but to address the IT part.... IT and the teaching of it from a department that is severely underfunded in my institution is genuinely one of the most frustrating aspects of my job.

IT is quite a broad big banner at the college with many different qualifications coming under it, as to be expected... Now specifically they have a 'flagship' cyber securities course, which is great in principle. I'm sure it is a highly required job in the sector, however, the application process is rigorous and leads to chronic shortfall in student numbers, each year.... And then the cost to update the hardware and software each year is horrendous.

This is genuinely the sort of BS that the government shouldn't expect colleges to fund - just to be clear, colleges are funded by the government but they are businesses, so they claim funding from the government at a flat rate per successful student. Roughly £4k per year, per student that achieves... That course is loss making, even at full capacity, by a hefty amount I'll add... The government begs for these skills but won't pay appropriately for them, and all that happens is other courses get cut.

The issues with British education are broad and chronic, but funding is the key one... The state education system on a whole is broken, almost beyond repair.

I'll come back and re-state what I was talking about critical thinking in the other thread later, and my opinions on intelligence also which is linked.

Politics is inevitable when talking about education, especially in the UK... No one can argue though, Labour and The Tories have equally done an awful job with education throughout all the custody of it. It's a bit like the NHS is education, taxes should pay for it, but the government should not run it, experts in the field should.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I am advocating for mandatory classes in philosophy, not the deep stuff, but just logic.

Yup. if more people were aware of things like the socratic method, they would already be in a better place to critically evaluate information.

endlesswaltz - I've seen colleges losing staff and courses mid year because of funding cutbacks appearing mid-year for the college. Staff in them all have the same attitude - they are being asked to do more; mark and provide more exams (even in places where students are generally there because they've not done well in exams and are after more practical course material); but they have far less pay/job security in general.

I agree there's a fundamental issue in funding and organisation from the top and the teaching staff sadly get the short end of the stick. I think it bares saying that many of the complaints of the schools system are often not so much aimed at teachers, but at the system they are working within.

It's a joke, honestly.... And the ideal education system as was being discussed in the previous thread where students are round plugs and placed into round holes, well, the logistics of that system doesn't exist.

However, yep, it happens. FE Lecturing is a rough job... And as they are predominately run by business people, in a business manner, e.g. students are customers that provide funding, they will never change, but also are not immune to poor business decisions... Another incredible bit of business decision making was spending multi millions on a new motor engineering centre that was to be funded by a local car plant via apprenticeships... It sounds like a good idea right? Until you look at the car industry, which is notoriously volatile in the UK, and then, incredibly the college expected this partnership to last 10 years and has effectively spent the money already...

Well, it won't take exceptional critical thinking to guess what happened within 3 years to all those apprenticeship placements....

Nearly every senior person linked to education in this country gets it so so so wrong, from heads of institutions, to the government, to the agencies that should be safeguarding education such as ofqual and ousted, and well, you only need to look in the press to catch on to that error.

I won't be working in education in 5 years time, I'm already building to get out, and I think most talented and previously enthusiastic teaching staff are thinking the same, the ship is currently sinking. It's usually the average to poor teachers that stay in the job to be honest as they know they will get found out in the private sector and won't be competent or skilled enough for most other public sector work... How depressing is that?

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It's a joke, honestly.... And the ideal education system as was being discussed in the previous thread where students are round plugs and placed into round holes, well, the logistics of that system doesn't exist.

However, yep, it happens. FE Lecturing is a rough job... And as they are predominately run by business people, in a business manner, e.g. students are customers that provide funding, they will never change, but also are not immune to poor business decisions... Another incredible bit of business decision making was spending multi millions on a new motor engineering centre that was to be funded by a local car plant via apprenticeships... It sounds like a good idea right? Until you look at the car industry, which is notoriously volatile in the UK, and then, incredibly the college expected this partnership to last 10 years and has effectively spent the money already...

Well, it won't take exceptional critical thinking to guess what happened within 3 years to all those apprenticeship placements....

Nearly every senior person linked to education in this country gets it so so so wrong, from heads of institutions, to the government, to the agencies that should be safeguarding education such as ofqual and ousted, and well, you only need to look in the press to catch on to that error.

I won't be working in education in 5 years time, I'm already building to get out, and I think most talented and previously enthusiastic teaching staff are thinking the same, the ship is currently sinking. It's usually the average to poor teachers that stay in the job to be honest as they know they will get found out in the private sector and won't be competent or skilled enough for most other public sector work... How depressing is that?

Privataising Schooling is imo, nothing more then admitting defeat .
Either failing to to teach teachers to teach or in the curriculum or in the baseline setup.



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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
I am advocating for mandatory classes in philosophy, not the deep stuff, but just logic.

Yup. if more people were aware of things like the socratic method, they would already be in a better place to critically evaluate information.

EEEEHHHHHHHHH debatable, i guess they would Technically be more capable but actually using this, is something of a training and memorizing issue.



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 LordofHats wrote:
To keep it from breaking the politics rules, I'll just say I hate the way education is managed and funded in my country. It's a nonsensical delineation of funding and decision making responsibilities that produces pitiful results, but will probably never be fixed because 'murica'. The American education system enshrines anti-intellectualism into it's structure in disastrous ways, in the one institution that should be completely pro-intellectual.

To keep to a simple, and I would hope non-controversial example, Local/State school boards should not be ruling on what should be taught in the classrooms. A bunch of stay at home parents who never graduated highschool and are sitting on a committee because they ranted at the last town hall about how unfair it is that evolution is taught in school but not intelligent design should not exist and sure as hell should have zero decision making power on what teachers teach. You might as well put the last lady who asked for your manager to discuss her completely unreasonable request in charge of a nuclear power plant. At least then the disaster would be spectacular and maybe become an HBO series some day with great production values.

Local people can run local schooling, that has never really been an issue,what becomes an issue is when the general standards are inexistent, and infrastructure disregarded because taxes = bad in the same vein as enlightenment = bad...

How's the swiss system? I read a lot about the German and Finnish systems, interested to know about others.

The UK education system, which hilariously still holds significant clout globally - Many UK universities are kept afloat by this myth via importing predominantly chinese foreign students who pay significantly more in tuition fees.

UK Universities aren't actually that bad, I'm probably speaking out of turn, it is a world class university system, but the whole education system rides on those coat tails when it just is not true, education holistically in the UK is not world class.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Local people can run local schooling, that has never really been an issue,what becomes an issue is when the general standards are inexistent, and infrastructure disregarded because taxes = bad in the same vein as enlightenment = bad...

Don't disagree. I'm more lamenting the end results of the latter two problems, which have resulted in unqualified persons making decisions they're not qualified to make and a vehemence in education policy that makes it an insurmountable problem.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
How's the swiss system? I read a lot about the German and Finnish systems, interested to know about others.

The UK education system, which hilariously still holds significant clout globally - Many UK universities are kept afloat by this myth via importing predominantly chinese foreign students who pay significantly more in tuition fees.

UK Universities aren't actually that bad, I'm probably speaking out of turn, it is a world class university system, but the whole education system rides on those coat tails when it just is not true, education holistically in the UK is not world class.

it's a dual system, generally there's baseline schooling ( 1-6) then there's secondary which is split up according to capability, better students get a differing curriculum. generally A , B, C.This is mandatory

There are 2 ways torwards academia allready at this point either after 6 class base schooling or after 2 year of secondary. into the gymnasium ( equiv is about high school). which is 4 or 6 years respectively. afterwards you can go search a job or go to university or "Hochschule " (jobspecific university often more practically minded , think of it as an univeristy light kinda, )

If you didn't go that way you'd be expected to find an apprenticeship after secondary schooling, which is 60-70 % practical work in a company and 40-30 % (1-2 days) school in specific necessary capabilites but also includes general skills like making taxes or how to vote ( which is important because half direct democracy has brought some rather particular voting systems into the world). Btw, if you are good you may make a jobspecific matura(highschool degree) which then increases schooling days / week by one but allows you later on to make other choices in regards to specialisation or to enter Hochschulen. So another way to further increase specialisation

Then you turn 18 at some point and have in many cases either finished a apprenticeship or Matura / Highschool,. meaning if you are male, you get conscripted, if you are female you can volunteer, which is also kinda like school, except with more sports and shooting and dangerous material handleing. alternatively you can do civil service, which is duration wise a bit longer nowadays but a nice tool to help out social institutions, which you work in general governmental or close to governmental institutions be that nursery homes, etc. Pay is gak tho regardless what you do for this task

Then it goes on. WIth job and live.
Mind you there are some jobs that have other, specific requirements that you don't find in this rough draft addmitedly, like police officer requireing baseline allready a job accomplished or finished university grade on top of another 4 years as a cadet.

The problem the UK universities have is that the nation views a degree as almost a "must have" for almost any job just to get to the interview stage of application. However what the employers really want is students with actual work experience; whilst the university is only outputting students with limited practical understanding and much more of an academic approach.

Meanwhile people who go through and get a more practical background and skip the uni approach can find it hard to advance up the ladder because they don't have the academic paper to prove they can write an essay (but have all the practical skills for the job).


So the university system in the UK is sort of stuck. Its providing academic students when society would rather it provided practical students.


Of course this varies sector to sector, some subjects are just more academic from the get go. Lecturers in others are frustrated because they can see the pattern and want to give students the skills, but the system is locked into academia.

 LordofHats wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Local people can run local schooling, that has never really been an issue,what becomes an issue is when the general standards are inexistent, and infrastructure disregarded because taxes = bad in the same vein as enlightenment = bad...

Don't disagree. I'm more lamenting the end results of the latter two problems, which have resulted in unqualified persons making decisions they're not qualified to make and a vehemence in education policy that makes it an insurmountable problem.

Frankly, just implementing or allowing states to form groupings to use experts and voted in officials that have experience ( or militia like system aka teachers themselves etc) and integrating feedback of teachers etc letting them organize and comparisons between states can allow those curriculums to be run pretty much with an open mind and nigh non preknown knowledge administratively atleast, the key however is cooperation and actual acceptance that political colour for that institution has to matter less then the job of said institution. TBF though teachers have over here a lot more leeway in regards to how they run their local schools and are only really under administration from government so that also helps that elected officials have less direct influence over the curriculum which pts are anyways generally implemented according to federal cantonal standards (seperate institution from the federal state as in this is basically just the Kantonal politicians and in this case mostly teachers deciding what's on it ) ,
Of course you can bypass this by the implementation of national level standardised curriculae, cue france,, but that is not a possibility for all states due to historic reasons...

Im gonna ramble a bit, mostly about science in school.
I have always had this problem with science in school sometimes just being "Facts" here is how X happens and here is the result. even experiments are not experiments, just arts & crafts with a scientific bent, which are fine when your are in elementary school.
But we are not taught how scientists reach the conclusions they do and why the sometimes might be wrong or the scientific process from conception of an experiment, to paper funding.

I think focusing on something akin for that can lead to a good outcome. But because it isnt "ULTRA COOL SCIENCE FACTS THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND" it isnt important.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im gonna ramble a bit, mostly about science in school.
I have always had this problem with science in school sometimes just being "Facts" here is how X happens and here is the result. even experiments are not experiments, just arts & crafts with a scientific bent, which are fine when your are in elementary school.
But we are not taught how scientists reach the conclusions they do and why the sometimes might be wrong or the scientific process from conception of an experiment, to paper funding.

I think focusing on something akin for that can lead to a good outcome. But because it isnt "ULTRA COOL SCIENCE FACTS THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND" it isnt important.

quite frankly, teaching the scientific method, falsification, verification etc. and showing on a small scale exemple then extrapolating it with bigger exemples, might indeed be the best way to stop the hostility torwards academia.

However, that also requires academics to accept that people with "lower" educational standards are just as important. i can't tell you how many times i heard deamaning and belitteling comments of higher educated people torwards plumbers f.e. and then utterly breaking down after their toilet broke down...

Ultimately, the problem in American and English education systems is that politics is involved in the education systems beyond making sure there is adequate funding. Once funding levels are met politics and politicians need to STAY OUT OF IT and let professional teachers handle it. And that needs to be TEACHERS, not professional administrators saying 'no, you can't do that' who've never taught a class ever, not professional curriculum developers with a product to sell, TEACHERS in charge and running things.

Other problem here in the US is that private and religious schools need to be kept the hell out of any decision making processes that are for public schools, and vetted extremely heavily with regards to their curriculum for accreditation.

I went to a private school from kindergarten to 5th grade. US history basically glossed over 'the bad stuff' and heavily emphasized the concept of Christians 'saving' the US from itself.

I mean i would argue that private schools are nothing more than ways people try to maintain privilege and power.
That we need to do away with them if we want any semblance of america being a place where everyone starts off on equal footing.
ESPECIALLY RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

I think there is a general issue in education where we focus too much on teaching students to regurgitate information while never really checking to see if they understand it. This is a problem in history because how K-12 education teaches history is almost a completely different field than what academic historians do. There's a overburdened focus on presenting 'facts' and little to no effort put forth on 'interpretation.'

History is made of interpretations based on facts. There is no 'fact' that the Roman Empire collapsed in 395 AD. You will find no one before the 16th century saying 'Rome fell in 395' and the Empire was over. There is a collection of facts that when interpreted make 395 AD as good a year as any to mark the fall of the Roman Empire. But teaching the later as a fact without addressing the former (that it is an interpretation of facts, not a fact itself) makes it difficult to get students to actually understand what historians do and how they do it.

Instead of teaching people history, you end up reteaching them 'new facts', like that the Byzantines didn't call themselves Byzantine, they called themselves Romans and that the Byzantine Empire, known to them as the Roman Empire, was a direct continuation of the Imperial Line and endured for another 1000 years, so did Rome really 'fall' or did its political center simply 'shift'? If so, why do we say 'Rome Fell'? Is the Eastern Empire fundamentally different from the Western Empire? Did both actually fall, but one managed to restructure itself and continue on? These are the kinds of debates Historians have at the most basic level, but you'd never know that from the way a middle school history book focuses on teaching kids to memorize names, terms, and dates and spit out a bargain bin explanation for why they're important.

One other downside of teaching "facts" is that it presents the idea that the subject is fully studied. When all students do is regurgitate and memorise facts and copy what's written in a single text book it reinforces the idea that we know all there is.

Now any student knows this is false with a bit of thinking; but at the same time the system isn't showing them where a student can fit into a potential job or line of work beyond teaching. As you say it presents the idea of fixed facts rather than more flexible research based study and understanding. Which in turn presents to students the idea of research, archaeology, text studies, multiple sources, debate within a subject, varying schools of thought.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I mean i would argue that private schools are nothing more than ways people try to maintain privilege and power.
That we need to do away with them if we want any semblance of america being a place where everyone starts off on equal footing.
ESPECIALLY RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

Religious schooling institutions don't necessarily need to be singled out, when it is infact, the lack of oversight over the curriculum that IS the issue.

That is pretty much my problem with how science is taught.
I have seen so many people say they "Love" science when in reality they just love the product of science(Cool Hubble Telescope pictures or Cool Rockets) Because that is what we have been taought, too look at the product of science, as science.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
That is pretty much my problem with how science is taught.
I have seen so many people say they "Love" science when in reality they just love the product of science(Cool Hubble Telescope pictures or Cool Rockets) Because that is what we have been taought, too look at the product of science, as science.

I like this way of putting it and will steal it in the future