Consequences. For not doing the work, not following the rules, or not knowing the material. A degree represents a certification of knowing certain stuff and having done other stuff. Don't know the stuff? Didn't do the stuff? No degree for you! It robs the degree of its value for those who did meet the expectations.
As long as schools, and specifically admin, are evaluated based on graduation rates this will never change.
We have students who have failed entire classes doing digital recapture classes from home, where they can look up answers for any test and are free to use AI to answer any prompt. They can finish an entire semester-long class in a few days (if not a few hours).
Its pretty aggravating when I have to work a graduation ceremony and watch students be handed a diploma on a stage when I know for a fact that they failed every single class for the entire year.
Consequences. For not doing the work, not following the rules, or not knowing the material. A degree represents a certification of knowing certain stuff and having done other stuff. Don't know the stuff? Didn't do the stuff? No degree for you! It robs the degree of its value for those who did meet the expectations.
As long as schools, and specifically admin, are evaluated based on graduation rates this will never change.
We have students who have failed entire classes doing digital recapture classes from home, where they can look up answers for any test and are free to use AI to answer any prompt. They can finish an entire semester-long class in a few days (if not a few hours).
Its pretty aggravating when I have to work a graduation ceremony and watch students be handed a diploma on a stage when I know for a fact that they failed every single class for the entire year.
This is unacceptable. There is no point to a degree if the credential is meaningless.
+2
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Consequences. For not doing the work, not following the rules, or not knowing the material. A degree represents a certification of knowing certain stuff and having done other stuff. Don't know the stuff? Didn't do the stuff? No degree for you! It robs the degree of its value for those who did meet the expectations.
As long as schools, and specifically admin, are evaluated based on graduation rates this will never change.
We have students who have failed entire classes doing digital recapture classes from home, where they can look up answers for any test and are free to use AI to answer any prompt. They can finish an entire semester-long class in a few days (if not a few hours).
Its pretty aggravating when I have to work a graduation ceremony and watch students be handed a diploma on a stage when I know for a fact that they failed every single class for the entire year.
This is unacceptable. There is no point to a degree if the credential is meaningless.
Zonugal is talking about the reality of the situation. The system incentivizes schools to avoid consequences.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Consequences. For not doing the work, not following the rules, or not knowing the material. A degree represents a certification of knowing certain stuff and having done other stuff. Don't know the stuff? Didn't do the stuff? No degree for you! It robs the degree of its value for those who did meet the expectations.
As long as schools, and specifically admin, are evaluated based on graduation rates this will never change.
We have students who have failed entire classes doing digital recapture classes from home, where they can look up answers for any test and are free to use AI to answer any prompt. They can finish an entire semester-long class in a few days (if not a few hours).
Its pretty aggravating when I have to work a graduation ceremony and watch students be handed a diploma on a stage when I know for a fact that they failed every single class for the entire year.
This is unacceptable. There is no point to a degree if the credential is meaningless.
Zonugal is talking about the reality of the situation. The system incentivizes schools to avoid consequences.
I agree with the assessment. I am also talking about the reality of the situation. This is unacceptable.
I understand why most payday lenders act as they do. That does not mean I approve of the industry's conduct.
If you all think developing a curriculum guide for U.S. History is hard, holy shit, World History is maddening.
You're given a semester to cover everything from 1200 to roughly 1700, but are also free to cover anything before or after that time span as well.
What do you choose? How do you structure it? Do you stick to a chronological approach or a thematic approach?
This is a debate that has been going on for 120+ years and we still don't have an answer for it.
I desperately want to believe that Zonugal has been there for all 120+ years of the debate.
Because the idea of a vampire teaching history class is amusing to me. Just growing ever more exasperated at the amount of history they have to teach and how much every text book gets wrong.
i took art every year in highschool and my last art teacher would get super mad when people started drawing goku/any anime character in class... which... being the mid-2000's was a daily occurrence at least
walkin into art class lookin around thinking "ok who is gonna get caught with goku today"
A good art teach would just be mad that they were probably grossly off model.
i took art every year in highschool and my last art teacher would get super mad when people started drawing goku/any anime character in class... which... being the mid-2000's was a daily occurrence at least
walkin into art class lookin around thinking "ok who is gonna get caught with goku today"
A good art teach would just be mad that they were probably grossly off model.
"If you're going to draw Goku don't act like you're a Liefeld!"
I actually went into a secondary school relatively recently, I was with someone picking up a relative, and there were loads of teenagers going home etc. We didn't actually go in, just parked in their little car park outside the front.
And literally as soon as we got there, my whole body was just fucking bolt upright, I was suddenly in such a state of agitation and tension, like I was back at my School, like I was 16 again and, man. That was hard and weird, and brought a lot of things back. It took a while for me to actually calm down after we left. All the work you do and just blam; it's back to zero.
Schools leave us with things we carry with us for a long long time. If I could have wished them to teach anything at school, it would have been how to be kinder to each other. I like to think they do now. I am not about to find out because I will never set foot inside one for the rest of my life if I can get away with it.
+1
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
It's funny the OP specifically called out teamwork and project management. I think everyone in school learns that group projects fucking suck and it always ends up with 1 or 2 people doing the project while other people do nothing, or you try to herd cats to do something and say fuck it and do the whole thing yourself. That's exactly like real life jobs.
But on topic I guess schools need to teach actual job skills. "Learning to learn" is the most copout shit ever, and it's not like I'm going to teach myself to be a plumber, electrician, someone in healthcare, or whatever else. You can teach yourself a hobby, but few can teach themselves a profession since many require certification.
The thing I always heard growing up was "go to college". That is dumb because there are a ton of degrees that do absolutely nothing for you aside from satisfying whatever interests you have. And the vast majority of degrees don't teach you how to do much of anything but write research papers. For most degrees, you get more out of the required math/statistics gen eds than the major itself.
It's funny the OP specifically called out teamwork and project management. I think everyone in school learns that group projects fucking suck and it always ends up with 1 or 2 people doing the project while other people do nothing, or you try to herd cats to do something and say fuck it and do the whole thing yourself. That's exactly like real life jobs.
But on topic I guess schools need to teach actual job skills. "Learning to learn" is the most copout shit ever, and it's not like I'm going to teach myself to be a plumber, electrician, someone in healthcare, or whatever else. You can teach yourself a hobby, but few can teach themselves a profession since many require certification.
The thing I always heard growing up was "go to college". That is dumb because there are a ton of degrees that do absolutely nothing for you aside from satisfying whatever interests you have. And the vast majority of degrees don't teach you how to do much of anything but write research papers. For most degrees, you get more out of the required math/statistics gen eds than the major itself.
I can't speak for other districts, but this is already a thing in mine and has been for several decades. The high school I recently left has career classes where the kids come out with certs and skills and a pipeline into those jobs (and many others!). Construction and various related trades, auto mechanics, nursing and related medical fields, lots more. All taught by people who worked in that industry for some threshold amount of time, all programs requiring a professional certification before graduation. The auto mechanic program, for example, can pipeline directly into a professional diesel mechanic program that holds some number of spots for students from this school every year after graduation. That program is affiliated with the local transit authority and after the however many months program concludes those kids have an in with the TA for a job starting at $70k/yr (plus signing bonus) without going to college. Or they can go anywhere else that wants a diesel mechanic. There's a few kids every graduating class that go this route, and many others.
The school also has a relationship with a local community college, so lots of concurrent credit stuff going, but also classes happening on the campus itself. Depending on how various dates and stuff shake out it's not uncommon for a couple students every year to technically receive an Associates degree in something before they get their high school diploma, in addition to whatever professional certs that stacked on top of that.
I'd been in 2 other schools in the district with similar programs, I can think of 3 or 4 more off the top of my head and a new one either opened this year or is in the Fall. There's an entire department in the district for this and I can't imagine that my district is the only urban one doing it, especially since I know the surrounding metro districts all have at least one school setup the same way.
What that school doesn't have is a sports team, but kids that wanna sports and do the above can join up with another high school's athletic program.
High school stuff focusing more on information about things you can do for a career sounds great, rather than just pushing everyone towards college without consideration for if that path is right for certain individuals. I know even when I got to college I still had no idea what it was I actually wanted to do outside the very few career paths I was aware of, which a Bachelors and five digit student loan debt later has been what shackles me to state service in the most generic job possible and few ways out.
0
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
My school has, well all the high school now but mine has had them longer, career academies. Our main ones are Urban Agriculture, Building and Construction, and Transportation Distribution and Logistics. They can get construction apprenticeships and forklift certifications and stuff like that.
My school has, well all the high school now but mine has had them longer, career academies. Our main ones are Urban Agriculture, Building and Construction, and Transportation Distribution and Logistics. They can get construction apprenticeships and forklift certifications and stuff like that.
Urban Agriculture sounds fucking radical. I hope it has a good enrollment rate!
My ideal, magic wish fixes would involve drastically shortening the school day. If my daughter rode the bus she would easily spend over 10 hours either at school or traveling for it. There's all this worry about childhood obesity yet we expect kids to sit still for hours on end. It's farcical.
While I'd have minimum required hours less than what they are now, I would also greatly expand the resources available to provide for more hours than today if that fit the child's need. Some kids would hugely benefit from thier school day being thier entire day. Public school is treated as day care (amongst other things) so let's make it official and worthwhile. Not only that, if a kid is deeply interested in a subject and would benefit from 3 hours of instruction in it, go for it.
Oh and of course greatly expand the arts.
+3
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Personally, my big wish is that I'd like more schools to utilize block scheduling.
Just to be up front Zonugal's point about being far removed from education is well taken. I'm sure something I've said here is wrong but I won't know how I'm wrong unless I speak up.
The big problem with college is it happens too early in life before you really know what you really want to do with your life.
I think this is more a function of how we talk to kids, as a society and as parents, about the future. I’m hoping to really focus down on this with my daughter and see if we can have some conversations about values and developing a self-reflection apparatus that can help with figuring such things out based on an interrogation of those values.
It might be wishful thinking, I guess we’ll know in about 20 years.
The big problem with college is it happens too early in life before you really know what you really want to do with your life.
yeah i dropped out of college after 1 semester after high school. joining the army and letting them deal with my life for 5 years let me grow up and figure out wtf i wanted to do
I honestly think sending people to college before they've really had any adult experiences is an incredibly fucked up thing. I've always been a fan of the "graduate high school, go do a one year backpacking trip through Europe" but that was never really affordable in the first place. But as I get older, the better and better I think it is as an idea.
Pinfeldorf on
+2
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I had a gap year break between (UK) college and university and was still shit at uni.
Basic cooking, meal planning, taxes and money management - general financial literacy, how to maintain a budget and shit. Basic metalworking, woodworking, drafting (as in actual functional learning to draw, not high art, just how to look at something and get it down on paper). Creative thinking. Stuff which does get taught, but is often optional - instead, put it front and center. Get kids a broad grounding in skills that are useful (because knowing your way around tools, around how to visualize an idea, around how to cook etc) are big deals. Life skill stuff, basically.
On that note - emotional regulation and techniques to handle that sort of thing. Huge area that coupled be taught, and especially for teens who are going through a ton of ups and down emotionally, learning actual tools to cope with this stuff could go a long way to help (and to potentially cut down on bullying if you're kneecapping one of the reasons why people bully)
Yeah, without making an effort to actually give young people tools to reflect and figure themselves out, I’m not certain time is all that’s missing from the equation of “make college less confusing/aimless.
How to be an independent learner seems necessary. You can't always get access to competent teachers or mentors, good books, or useful documentation. Jobs don't want to or know how to train people, and on top of that the world is full of bullshitters happy to train incompetence into people.
Being able to take your education into your own hands rather than being at the mercy of what's on offer -while not tripping over arrogance - is a life changer.
On that note - emotional regulation and techniques to handle that sort of thing. Huge area that coupled be taught, and especially for teens who are going through a ton of ups and down emotionally, learning actual tools to cope with this stuff could go a long way to help (and to potentially cut down on bullying if you're kneecapping one of the reasons why people bully)
Media literacy, critical thinking, basic home finances and basic financial literacy, social literacy (aka people are different and this is ok here’s how to interact with them without being a dick), mindfulness with good self-coping skills, actually useful talks regarding the Big 3 (Death, Sex, and Drugs).
And I think we as a society need to have a frank conversation about what the role of a school teacher is in relation to children but also in contrast to their parent/guardian. The more duties/responsibilities you take from what should honestly be a parental/guardian's domain and throw at a teacher, the more burn-out you create for the teacher.
"This year I am going to teach you the basics of algebra, but I guess I should also cover how to be a decent person too?" doesn't feel like a balanced request for a teacher.
This sort of stuff might be approachable if teachers were given a greater sense of autonomy but parents still largely comprise school boards and holy shit, parents don't want teachers downloading their personal beliefs/values into students. They fucking DESPISE it, so we're caught in this situation where teachers are expected to instruct children how to be good citizens (on top of their general curriculum) but can't actually push past the surface level of that because society also doesn't really want that to be happening?
Just a thought I had this morning as I sipped my third cup of coffee.
+21
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
The other thing I will point out with even specific subject ideas like balancing a chequebook (lol America), the idea of getting a fifteen year old kid to care about things like is laughable at best. The idea of them thinking that large scale just doesn’t really work. The best bet for them to actually get that is give them a job and have them save for a car.
On that note - emotional regulation and techniques to handle that sort of thing. Huge area that coupled be taught, and especially for teens who are going through a ton of ups and down emotionally, learning actual tools to cope with this stuff could go a long way to help (and to potentially cut down on bullying if you're kneecapping one of the reasons why people bully)
Media literacy, critical thinking, basic home finances and basic financial literacy, social literacy (aka people are different and this is ok here’s how to interact with them without being a dick), mindfulness with good self-coping skills, actually useful talks regarding the Big 3 (Death, Sex, and Drugs).
And I think we as a society need to have a frank conversation about what the role of a school teacher is in relation to children but also in contrast to their parent/guardian. The more duties/responsibilities you take from what should honestly be a parental/guardian's domain and throw at a teacher, the more burn-out you create for the teacher.
"This year I am going to teach you the basics of algebra, but I guess I should also cover how to be a decent person too?" doesn't feel like a balanced request for a teacher.
This sort of stuff might be approachable if teachers were given a greater sense of autonomy but parents still largely comprise school boards and holy shit, parents don't want teachers downloading their personal beliefs/values into students. They fucking DESPISE it, so we're caught in this situation where teachers are expected to instruct children how to be good citizens (on top of their general curriculum) but can't actually push past the surface level of that because society also doesn't really want that to be happening?
Just a thought I had this morning as I sipped my third cup of coffee.
Once the kids are in high school, definitely it's facts and "this is how to learn and be skeptical about things" time. But at younger ages the schools here do spend a lot of time on being kind, supporting each other, all that happy stuff. Whether it makes things better than not I really don't know because they're always going to learn a lot of bad shit from home and bring it to school anyway. And some kids are still super duper assholes regardless!
I think the problem for people on the outside looking in on the school system is probably “people fucking suck and from my experience as a (hopefully) healthy adult, learning the skills to help me suck less also made me happier and otherwise improved my life, what mechanism do we have as a society that will help kids learn these things universally, since obviously their parents are garbage and aren’t teaching it”.
I think is kind of an arrogant position to take, but also, I live in a society and do hate it when shitty people who might be shitty for any number of reasons, reasonable and not, intrude on my life, right?
Sort of like the police and all the ridiculous shit America asks them to do, I think I can fuck with the notion that school probably isn’t necessarily the the best place for learning these skills, but that does beg the question of whether there is a reasonable, societal-level solution to this problem. A secular answer to church, maybe? What would such an institution look like? Or is it a fools errand to begin with? Could we fold it in to other stuff that already exists?
At the age of six every child is given a buck knife, a flint, and a fifth of corn whiskey and then we send them into hinterlands for a month.
I think this is a perfectly actionable plan I just gotta figure out what a hinterland is and if we have one.
well we will once we annex Canada
edit: there's a weird part of me that thinks it would actually be neat if between high school and college you get an orienteering course and then they dump you in Alaska somewhere.
Posts
As long as schools, and specifically admin, are evaluated based on graduation rates this will never change.
We have students who have failed entire classes doing digital recapture classes from home, where they can look up answers for any test and are free to use AI to answer any prompt. They can finish an entire semester-long class in a few days (if not a few hours).
Its pretty aggravating when I have to work a graduation ceremony and watch students be handed a diploma on a stage when I know for a fact that they failed every single class for the entire year.
This is unacceptable. There is no point to a degree if the credential is meaningless.
Zonugal is talking about the reality of the situation. The system incentivizes schools to avoid consequences.
I agree with the assessment. I am also talking about the reality of the situation. This is unacceptable.
I understand why most payday lenders act as they do. That does not mean I approve of the industry's conduct.
I desperately want to believe that Zonugal has been there for all 120+ years of the debate.
Because the idea of a vampire teaching history class is amusing to me. Just growing ever more exasperated at the amount of history they have to teach and how much every text book gets wrong.
A good art teach would just be mad that they were probably grossly off model.
"If you're going to draw Goku don't act like you're a Liefeld!"
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
And literally as soon as we got there, my whole body was just fucking bolt upright, I was suddenly in such a state of agitation and tension, like I was back at my School, like I was 16 again and, man. That was hard and weird, and brought a lot of things back. It took a while for me to actually calm down after we left. All the work you do and just blam; it's back to zero.
Schools leave us with things we carry with us for a long long time. If I could have wished them to teach anything at school, it would have been how to be kinder to each other. I like to think they do now. I am not about to find out because I will never set foot inside one for the rest of my life if I can get away with it.
I did that this year.
Did you know in our front office they turned off the bell because…….?
Anyway one time I had a meeting with one of the deputies and yeah it ran very overtime because in my head I went, well the bell hasn’t gone yet.
Satans..... hints.....
But on topic I guess schools need to teach actual job skills. "Learning to learn" is the most copout shit ever, and it's not like I'm going to teach myself to be a plumber, electrician, someone in healthcare, or whatever else. You can teach yourself a hobby, but few can teach themselves a profession since many require certification.
The thing I always heard growing up was "go to college". That is dumb because there are a ton of degrees that do absolutely nothing for you aside from satisfying whatever interests you have. And the vast majority of degrees don't teach you how to do much of anything but write research papers. For most degrees, you get more out of the required math/statistics gen eds than the major itself.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
I can't speak for other districts, but this is already a thing in mine and has been for several decades. The high school I recently left has career classes where the kids come out with certs and skills and a pipeline into those jobs (and many others!). Construction and various related trades, auto mechanics, nursing and related medical fields, lots more. All taught by people who worked in that industry for some threshold amount of time, all programs requiring a professional certification before graduation. The auto mechanic program, for example, can pipeline directly into a professional diesel mechanic program that holds some number of spots for students from this school every year after graduation. That program is affiliated with the local transit authority and after the however many months program concludes those kids have an in with the TA for a job starting at $70k/yr (plus signing bonus) without going to college. Or they can go anywhere else that wants a diesel mechanic. There's a few kids every graduating class that go this route, and many others.
The school also has a relationship with a local community college, so lots of concurrent credit stuff going, but also classes happening on the campus itself. Depending on how various dates and stuff shake out it's not uncommon for a couple students every year to technically receive an Associates degree in something before they get their high school diploma, in addition to whatever professional certs that stacked on top of that.
I'd been in 2 other schools in the district with similar programs, I can think of 3 or 4 more off the top of my head and a new one either opened this year or is in the Fall. There's an entire department in the district for this and I can't imagine that my district is the only urban one doing it, especially since I know the surrounding metro districts all have at least one school setup the same way.
What that school doesn't have is a sports team, but kids that wanna sports and do the above can join up with another high school's athletic program.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
Urban Agriculture sounds fucking radical. I hope it has a good enrollment rate!
While I'd have minimum required hours less than what they are now, I would also greatly expand the resources available to provide for more hours than today if that fit the child's need. Some kids would hugely benefit from thier school day being thier entire day. Public school is treated as day care (amongst other things) so let's make it official and worthwhile. Not only that, if a kid is deeply interested in a subject and would benefit from 3 hours of instruction in it, go for it.
Oh and of course greatly expand the arts.
No 6th period? Go home at lunch!
I think this is more a function of how we talk to kids, as a society and as parents, about the future. I’m hoping to really focus down on this with my daughter and see if we can have some conversations about values and developing a self-reflection apparatus that can help with figuring such things out based on an interrogation of those values.
It might be wishful thinking, I guess we’ll know in about 20 years.
yeah i dropped out of college after 1 semester after high school. joining the army and letting them deal with my life for 5 years let me grow up and figure out wtf i wanted to do
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
On that note - emotional regulation and techniques to handle that sort of thing. Huge area that coupled be taught, and especially for teens who are going through a ton of ups and down emotionally, learning actual tools to cope with this stuff could go a long way to help (and to potentially cut down on bullying if you're kneecapping one of the reasons why people bully)
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Being able to take your education into your own hands rather than being at the mercy of what's on offer -while not tripping over arrogance - is a life changer.
And I think we as a society need to have a frank conversation about what the role of a school teacher is in relation to children but also in contrast to their parent/guardian. The more duties/responsibilities you take from what should honestly be a parental/guardian's domain and throw at a teacher, the more burn-out you create for the teacher.
"This year I am going to teach you the basics of algebra, but I guess I should also cover how to be a decent person too?" doesn't feel like a balanced request for a teacher.
This sort of stuff might be approachable if teachers were given a greater sense of autonomy but parents still largely comprise school boards and holy shit, parents don't want teachers downloading their personal beliefs/values into students. They fucking DESPISE it, so we're caught in this situation where teachers are expected to instruct children how to be good citizens (on top of their general curriculum) but can't actually push past the surface level of that because society also doesn't really want that to be happening?
Just a thought I had this morning as I sipped my third cup of coffee.
Satans..... hints.....
Once the kids are in high school, definitely it's facts and "this is how to learn and be skeptical about things" time. But at younger ages the schools here do spend a lot of time on being kind, supporting each other, all that happy stuff. Whether it makes things better than not I really don't know because they're always going to learn a lot of bad shit from home and bring it to school anyway. And some kids are still super duper assholes regardless!
So yeah, I dunno, it's real complicated.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I think is kind of an arrogant position to take, but also, I live in a society and do hate it when shitty people who might be shitty for any number of reasons, reasonable and not, intrude on my life, right?
Sort of like the police and all the ridiculous shit America asks them to do, I think I can fuck with the notion that school probably isn’t necessarily the the best place for learning these skills, but that does beg the question of whether there is a reasonable, societal-level solution to this problem. A secular answer to church, maybe? What would such an institution look like? Or is it a fools errand to begin with? Could we fold it in to other stuff that already exists?
I think this is a perfectly actionable plan I just gotta figure out what a hinterland is and if we have one.
well we will once we annex Canada
edit: there's a weird part of me that thinks it would actually be neat if between high school and college you get an orienteering course and then they dump you in Alaska somewhere.
like, hyper-backpacking
Take a check?