America's Educational System Captured In A Single Speech

[PoorManQ45]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts[/youtube]

Long, but worth the watch.

Hopefully discussion will commence.

[dre1507]

i'll just repost what i said in the other thread. "Every thing after elementary school up until you begin your major in college is pointless." Well actually after middle school. So im saying those years we spent in high school and the first 2 years of college, if doing a bachelors, was just for you to work on your social skills.

[Encryptshun]

I think you should only be allowed into college if you were born on a Friday. To get into grad school, you'd have to be born on a Friday afternoon. PhD entrants would be those born on a Friday afternoon after tea but before early dinner.

[Dittoz7]

She looks pretty hot...

[93coupe]

I couldn't pay attention to anything but the old lady neck blocking my view.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

That lady's head looks like a mass of albino tapeworms attacking the thigh of a really old fat person.

[wingFeather]

The message was awesome! Some of what she talks about is emphasized in grad school, but even there you are really just restating what peers in the field deem acceptable. Think differently, and as is done here on NICO you will be mocked.

[bigbadberry3]

"Every thing after elementary school up until you begin your major in college is pointless." Well actually after middle school. So im saying those years we spent in high school and the first 2 years of college, if doing a bachelors, was just for you to work on your social skills.

Did you just decide to slack off for this period of your life?

[Eikon]

First off... she's a retard! Your education is only as good as you want it to be. You get out of it what you choose to get out of it. If her goal was only to graduate and not to learn anything valuable along the way, then she's an idiot! If she only packed information into her head long enough to pass the next exam, then just let it all go out the window right after.. she's an idiot! If she feels like she got a poor education, it's more her fault than the system. We're free people and we can get out of school whatever we want to get out of school.

Grade school through high school education gives us the building blocks we need to be a successful person. It's the skill set you need to live life.. reading, writing, science, math, history, etc..
Tech school is job training for those who know what they want for their career.
College is about teaching us how to really think and learn and apply the tools we learned in high school.
Grad school is taking that to the next level and preparing people for leadership roles and pulling together complex issues from multiple areas.

I'm not saying our school system is perfect.. it's socialism... which is why it's imperfect. Once upon a time children learned from their parents and the world around them that their education was critical to their success in life. The difference between the quality of life lived by those who were educated, motivated and intelligent compared to those who were uneducated, dissinterested, and lazy was absolutely huge. Today, our society has created a system that ensures that you can live a happy and healthy life without putting forward any effort to succeed. No wonder the vast majority of our students do what this girl claimed to do.. which is to strive only to complete the process and earn the diploma. Welcome to socialism.

Want to fix our education system?.. Take away the support structures like welfare, long term unemployment, etc.. that allow us slack off and be lazy and not really need to be motivated to make anything of our lives. Don't make life a cake-walk. When the kids start to see for themselves that poverty is a horrible lifestyle, and that their education is the key to a happy lifestyle, they will chose to get more out of it.

It's amazing how far we've fallen. As little as 50 years ago, people took school much more seriously. Years ago college was a 12+ hour a day activity. Young adults would completely immerse themselves in their studies from morning til night all week long. Today our students skip classes and do homework the night before it's due and cram for exams overnight. They are more worried about socializing and drinking than they are about actually learning something and preparing for their future.


K.. I'm done with my angry rant. I have to get back to studying for my managerial accounting final exam.

[bigbadberry3]

HS has become to easy IMO. It's like the little kid league where everybody gets a trophy just for playing.

[dre1507]

Yes I slacked off and still managed to graduate with a 3.6 GPA. Doing ok in university.

[wingFeather]

College is about teaching us how to really think and learn and apply the tools we learned in high school.

But is it really? This is what she was saying - college is more about memorizing "facts" than synthesizing thought. Sure you could make it that, if you knew how, but shouldn't college teach a person HOW to synthesize instead of encourage regurgitation? The internet has the same effect on the current generation of kids - they read a post on NICO on how to fix their car, instead of learning how to figure such things out on their own. This teaches people to be robots, not creators.

[bigbadberry3]

Yes I slacked off and still managed to graduate with a 3.6 GPA. Doing ok in university.

I'm glad you're holding your own in college but I didn't slack off in HS and I just completed my undergrad course for physics and math and now am finishing a minor in education and without a doubt I needed the AP classes to prep me. Lot's of classes are straight memorization in HS but some classes, usually the sciences are more logic orientated and therefore you can't "cheese" your way through.

However, memorization is what state education boards want because they can easily evaluate these areas through standardized testing. That is where teaching becomes difficult because you don't want mindless drones who can't think but are great at memorizing even though your job may depend on producing them. Logic can't be faked although being smart by knowing facts can give the illusion of intelligence.

[krash]

[
But is it really? This is what she was saying - college is more about memorizing "facts" than synthesizing thought.

lolwut. Where did you go to college? I find that High School is more of the regurgitating, and College is where you really have to think. Maybe thats just because of the courses I'm taking.

[dre1507]

Logic can't be faked although being smart by knowing facts can give the illusion of intelligence.

Love this so much it'll now be part of my sig. There was only one class in HS that made me think and that was AP English. I had a teacher who was so passionate about literature and the English language, that the people in her AP English class were referred to as "crazy" by their peers. Sure has helped me a lot in college. I write my papers the day before they're due, because of the confidence i have. Every thing else seemed pointless, but i did love AP history and AP bio even so.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Anyone else get suckered into the IB program? What a waste of time that s*** was. Glad I took AP classes alongside them.

[dre1507]

what IB program?

[Jesda]

I generally agree with Eikon. It really is what you put in. Its true and unfortunate that you can put in no effort and graduate with a decent GPA -- the result is that a college degree isn't as valuable as it once was. It doesn't stand in place of or above direct experience as effectively as it once did.

My early college years were indeed about taking information and repeating it on an exam, but towards the end I got involved in heavy projects that required critical thinking, creativity, and analysis. Its when I finally got excited about my degree and understood the value of everything I learned previously.

The freshmen are there to keep the lights on at the school, crowding into auditoriums to listen to one-way lectures.

[dre1507]

Yes, Jesda. That is what the first 2 years of college are for. Majority of the stuff i was taught to regurgitate on tests during the first 2 years had nothing to do with my major. In fact, because of the "vagueness" of my major, i was required to take 21 elective credits. The only good thing that came out of those 21 elective credits was the INR (Contemporary International Problems) class i took. I actually had to use my brain for critical thinking, because the professor never once dished out facts and told us to memorize.

[Jesda]

I also thoroughly enjoyed the art, literature, history, and music classes I've taken. I'm pondering a music minor for personal enrichment. I regret not basing more of my education on traditional liberal arts.

[RobPaulson]

I also thoroughly enjoyed the art, literature, history, and music classes I've taken. I'm pondering a music minor for personal enrichment. I regret not basing more of my education on traditional liberal arts.

this.

i have an engineering degree and seriously wish i had gone into something else.

also, i think everyone here saying 'you get what you put into it' is exactly what she is saying in this speech. she is condemning the current system for pushing the idea that everyone just needs to pass the tests, get a certain GPA, and fall in line to become a business major or engineer. the system itself does not encourage creativity and unique thought, it encourages regulation and standardized tests.

sure, if your independently minded enough to go those unique routes, and determined enough to make it happen, the tools are available and anyone can pull it off. But it is far from encouraged by the majority of educators.

[wingFeather]

she is condemning the current system for pushing the idea that everyone just needs to pass the tests, get a certain GPA, and fall in line to become a business major or engineer. the system itself does not encourage creativity and unique thought, it encourages regulation and standardized tests.