PhotoMath Solves Math Problems via Video
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What can you expect? The American model for education promotes mediocrity, while giving lip service to excellence.
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I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
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@Dashrender said:
OK Speaking of math - what do you guys think of Common Core?
I worked in a school the first year the Common Core was introduced. Teachers hated it, the administration didn't like it due to cost and budgetary reasons, parents didn't like it because it was difficult to understand and almost impossible to help their kids with. I wasn't a fan because it put additional work and responsibilities on an already taxed technology department.
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@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
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@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
Welcome to Americanism, where the intelligent and creative get punished and the mediocre get rewarded.
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@art_of_shred said:
What can you expect? The American model for education promotes mediocrity, while giving lip service to excellence.
At its core, it was always designed to build a blue collar working class. That was its goal. Equip people for basic manual and semi-skilled labour while keeping kids, who are not very productive, out of the workforce in order to curb unemployment. It does a relatively good job at this.
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@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
Thanks, AJ. That is about the most intelligent comment in this whole thread.
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@art_of_shred said:
@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
Thanks, AJ. That is about the most intelligent comment in this whole thread.
Serious or sarcastic?
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@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
I can appreciate the sentiment but I think that it is less conspiracy than that. The economy only needs a handful of really good, high end workers. It needs tons of relatively similar manual workers and, more recently, service workers. We needs tons more baristas, bar tenders, waiters, taxi drivers, etc. than we do engineers, scientists and IT people. Way more. So the school system is designed to focus on the majority, who aren't going to motivate themselves, and is willing to sacrifice the potential top end workers in the hopes that they will either come from rich families who will keep them from going through the system or that they will be so self motivated that they will self select out.
The ones who are really hurt by the system are the exceptional students who come from non-rich families or who lack parents willing to help them find better education. Those that are caught as good students in the bad systems are the big losers.
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@scottalanmiller I don't even think the status quo model fits so well anymore. It's a self-esteem building exercise that is more worried about not offending fringe groups than anything to do with education. It might not be a bad shift, seeing as how fantastic of a job it was doing in the education department. Oh, and don't get me wrong. I am not supporting the whiner-coddling that goes on for the sake of the fringe groups, either.
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@thanksaj said:
@art_of_shred said:
@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
Thanks, AJ. That is about the most intelligent comment in this whole thread.
Serious or sarcastic?
Absolutely serious.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
I can appreciate the sentiment but I think that it is less conspiracy than that. The economy only needs a handful of really good, high end workers. It needs tons of relatively similar manual workers and, more recently, service workers. We needs tons more baristas, bar tenders, waiters, taxi drivers, etc. than we do engineers, scientists and IT people. Way more. So the school system is designed to focus on the majority, who aren't going to motivate themselves, and is willing to sacrifice the potential top end workers in the hopes that they will either come from rich families who will keep them from going through the system or that they will be so self motivated that they will self select out.
The ones who are really hurt by the system are the exceptional students who come from non-rich families or who lack parents willing to help them find better education. Those that are caught as good students in the bad systems are the big losers.
I'm confused. You think everything is a conspiracy... but not the stranglehold of the educrats?
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@coliver said:
Welcome to Americanism, where the intelligent and creative get punished and the mediocre get rewarded.
We are a big country, more like India, China and the Philippines. We don't have the luxury of having good education for everyone and high end jobs for everyone like small, elite countries like Norway, Finland and Switzerland have. They don't need "base economy" workers, they have other countries for that nearby. They are small and a huge percentage of their population can have amazing jobs. But the US is too large. Canada could try for that, but the US and Mexico are just too big. We have to provide the service sector, the manufacturing sector, the mining and transportation sectors, the agriculture, the forestry, the tourism. We can't make ourselves supported by banking, design, engineering and research. We can do those things, but they have to be a sideline. The core economy must be able to support hundreds of millions of people.
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller I don't even think the status quo model fits so well anymore. It's a self-esteem building exercise that is more worried about not offending fringe groups than anything to do with education. It might not be a bad shift, seeing as how fantastic of a job it was doing in the education department. Oh, and don't get me wrong. I am not supporting the whiner-coddling that goes on for the sake of the fringe groups, either.
I agree. The system is designed to make you feel good, and prevent you from failing. They disillusion kids to what any semblance of real life will be like and then wonder why so many fail. Then they blame the education system for not "encouraging kids to be better" by things like going to college and "being all they can be". It's cyclical, and downward-spiraling.
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@art_of_shred said:
I'm confused. You think everything is a conspiracy... but not the stranglehold of the educrats?
I don't think that they are that forward thinking or organized. Just lazy and opportunistic.
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@art_of_shred said:
@thanksaj said:
@art_of_shred said:
@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.
Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.
If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.
Thanks, AJ. That is about the most intelligent comment in this whole thread.
Serious or sarcastic?
Absolutely serious.
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@scottalanmiller So this is one issue where you are taking my normal stance and I am taking yours. Strange.
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller So this is one issue where you are taking my normal stance and I am taking yours. Strange.
When I think that something is a conspiracy, I'm giving credit to the people that I think are doing it. Conspiracy takes effort.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Welcome to Americanism, where the intelligent and creative get punished and the mediocre get rewarded.
We are a big country, more like India, China and the Philippines. We don't have the luxury of having good education for everyone and high end jobs for everyone like small, elite countries like Norway, Finland and Switzerland have. They don't need "base economy" workers, they have other countries for that nearby. They are small and a huge percentage of their population can have amazing jobs. But the US is too large. Canada could try for that, but the US and Mexico are just too big. We have to provide the service sector, the manufacturing sector, the mining and transportation sectors, the agriculture, the forestry, the tourism. We can't make ourselves supported by banking, design, engineering and research. We can do those things, but they have to be a sideline. The core economy must be able to support hundreds of millions of people.
Great point - we have this broken notion that everyone can be and more importantly, should be at the top of their class, but as Scott pointed out, there just isn't enough room for that. Maybe in 20-50 years when our technology can take over all of the menial service jobs, but not today.
