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Education Systems Across the World: A Discussion
Dr Snofeld
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Some weeks ago I was talking over MSN to a friend of mine in Texas. Somehow the topic of conversation became high school, and she told me that her high school had dumbed down the subjects to make their marks look good, to the extent that even some of their top students were in remedial courses in college.
I found this really weird, not because I thought "lol, American education", which isn't what I want to discuss here, but because that sort of thing does not happen in the UK. We have, well, I don't know the real name for it, but I suppose "standardised education" would be a good term; any given subject would be taught exactly the same way with the same material in any school in the country (well almost, since Scotland, England, Northern Island and possibly (I don't know) Wales all have their own separate systems).
Of course even in the UK there's education differences within the distinct nations. For example, there's been a lot of talk in the news lately about how English A-Levels are meaning less and less these days because they're so easy. Whereas Scottish Advanced Highers (the highest level you can study in high school) are roughly equivelent to the first year of many university courses (I'm speaking from experience, a large proportion of the subjects I have studied in my first year of my Zoology course were subjects I'd already done the previous year in high school).
But I've waffled on long enough. The reason I made this topic is becasue I realised I don't know the first thing about education systems other than my own. I don't know what schools are like in, say, Canada, or Australia. And even for those systems I do know a little about, I only hear of the negatives, such is the nature of news and gossip and suchlike.
So, members of DnD, enlighten me. What is education like in your country? Do you like it? Does it set students on the right track for life? And, for you American forumites, do kids in American high schools really segregate into cliques like in movies and TV? Because I've never seen that in real life.
I found this really weird, not because I thought "lol, American education", which isn't what I want to discuss here, but because that sort of thing does not happen in the UK. We have, well, I don't know the real name for it, but I suppose "standardised education" would be a good term; any given subject would be taught exactly the same way with the same material in any school in the country (well almost, since Scotland, England, Northern Island and possibly (I don't know) Wales all have their own separate systems).
Of course even in the UK there's education differences within the distinct nations. For example, there's been a lot of talk in the news lately about how English A-Levels are meaning less and less these days because they're so easy. Whereas Scottish Advanced Highers (the highest level you can study in high school) are roughly equivelent to the first year of many university courses (I'm speaking from experience, a large proportion of the subjects I have studied in my first year of my Zoology course were subjects I'd already done the previous year in high school).
But I've waffled on long enough. The reason I made this topic is becasue I realised I don't know the first thing about education systems other than my own. I don't know what schools are like in, say, Canada, or Australia. And even for those systems I do know a little about, I only hear of the negatives, such is the nature of news and gossip and suchlike.
So, members of DnD, enlighten me. What is education like in your country? Do you like it? Does it set students on the right track for life? And, for you American forumites, do kids in American high schools really segregate into cliques like in movies and TV? Because I've never seen that in real life.
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The cliques on campus were numerous and huge, and each had their own section of the campus to chill. I personally find this harmless though. There was asians, goths, rednecks (yes we had a redneck section,) hispanic, black,
I'll think of more shit later. I can't remember high school. I worked very hard to make sure I don't remember high school.
High school wasn't too bad for me, especially in my last year when through a (now defunct) loophole I managed to get 14 out of 30 free periods a week.
What's No Child Left Behind?
1. Lower the standards for schools so more children can graduate more easily.
2. Hay guys the standards are lowered lets fire some teachers and save phat paper-stacks!
3. ?????
4. Better schools!
You get college credit for them depending on your score from 1-6.
Things like GPA and course difficulty are ultimately a huge joke. I teach in a very high achieving school district, but we have our own GPA system that results in our class leaders to have GPAs of like 5.4 (it's some stupid bonus thing). We are actually jumping on another trend of not recording or reporting GPA and class rank to colleges, and it's supposed to actually increase our acceptance to ivy league schools.
No Child Left Behind is about the closest we have to a "national standard" where the states each give their version of a 10th grade graduation test. It's ultimately a horrible waste of resources and grossly misunderstands the education process. My first teaching gig was at a much much lower district, my students were the typical kids portrayed in inner city school movies. We spent about all of our efforts studying for this test, but I had students who couldn't subtract single digit numbers. Our school "rating" and thus funding was tied into these students passing the test. The result is the high achieving schools getting more funding to keep being awesome, and the lower income schools getting worse and reprimanded by losing funding and even sometimes having other teachers come in to replace the current staff.
See, my major problem for lowering standards is that it's unfair on the students who get A's and B's and rightfully believe they're pretty great, but then they leave school and find that they've been lied to, and they're actually mediocre at best. They'd be doing comparatively badly, by national standards or whatever, but they wouldn't be able to improve because they wouldn't know they'd need to.
Hey, and how about we cut funding to schools that are underperforming. Wow, what a brilliant way to keep poor people poor forever!
No Child Left Behind is the worst thing ever btw.
Now, this system is a good 60-70 years old, with some things (universities, obviously) being even older, and it hasn't aged well at all. Basically, most jobs require you to have finished the Gymnasium level, all the other, more simple jobs at least require the Realschule. Students at the Hauptschule pretty much go straight into unemployment. The politicians are still divided as for how to reform it, and the fact that any new party taking office changes the system around does not help at all. Basically, if you start now, you can expect to have three different educational systems and philosophy in your school career, if you go for the Gymnasium level.
In that respect I think medical schools should have an exam like the Law bar exam.
Also, University rankings are really badly worked out now, students are given performance forms to fill out on their course which are taken into account, which are passed through the lecturer. It makes the whole thing horribly biased along with most universities having some good departments and some bad.
Like my Uni has 5A research standards in biological science, but because they let in lower level graduates and the rest of the uni is ranked so lowly the overall rank is dragged down and the worth of the degree is lowered.
With high school I found that some courses have much higher difficulty levels than others, which you can tell by history students all getting A's and B's, whilst science and mathematics students tend to be a much greater range on how well the class does.
It seems that most education systems are flawed, with bad students being rewarded in High schools now, yet the better students are given much much better prospects when it may be that some of the mediocre students could have done much better if they had been given more choice in what they were learning (like in University).
A girl I knew in Uni hated Developmental biology and did really bad in that unit (getting just over 50% in the unit), yet when she did such units as genomics, and macromolecules, she got high 60% marks.
I know this isn't your main point, but I highly doubt what you wrote there (in italics, my emphasis) is correct. To what extent are teachers over there told or forced to teach things in the same way? Individual states in the US are moving towards standardizing their curricula, but they haven't touched on how the material should be taught.
When I moved to Florida from Virginia they wanted to bump me up two grades because Virginia had apparently used harder standards then Florida.
It might be worth noting that an M.D. recipient is usually only a little over halfway to being a practicing doctor, at best.
Well yeah, standardized curriculum was what I really meant. Hehe, explainations are not my forte...which isn't a good trait in a science student, huh...
Yeah, but those three years of degree give the student the basics of medical knowledge before they go on to start treating people, and I think the study was talking about the actual end of the Medical Degree, not just the first three years. As in the U.K you have to do all 5 years to recieve MD status, as it's viewed like a PhD.
One thing I'm interested in though is how schools handle funding. In Denmark the state pays all school expenses and you will be paid to go to college and university, how much depends on whether or not your renting, live at home or distance to parent's household. You will even get the support money if you go to a private school. I think this is fairly unique to Scandinavia as most places you have to pay for your education beyond high school.
Actually, Scottish students going to a Scottish university get their tuition fees paid for them. Though you have to pay it back once you're earning, in the same manner as a student loan, but I think that has been or will be abolished.
I'm talking about residency-- in the US it's typically three to seven years, depending on specialty. This is after recieving a doctorate.
That's not so much "who is more talented," it more "who is the lowest bidder." That pesky minimum wage and moderate salaries are just too damn much for the wealthy in America. Nobody should ever be paid enough to live.
But to be fair, too many people who shouldn't be making babies continue to do so.
Us dike lovers have a fairly convoluted education system. Middle school and high school are merged, there's no distinction between the two. Instead, we have 3 different flavours of high school. After which, we have 3 different flavours of college, and SUB-divisions of said flavours, and everything just is a colossal clusterfuck grah. Let's get started then, shall we?
Pretty pictures that don't play well with the forums
Here we see the many ways in which a Dutch citizen might educate themselves. Based partly on performance in elementary school and partly on performance in the first year of high school, a student will find himself in either VMBO, HAVO or VWO. It will take respectively 4, 5 or 6 years to complete high school, though it's not uncommon for a student of a lower grade to get placed in the pre-final year of the next grade up. After several years, a student select one of four different profiles to follow in terms of classes. Certain profiles have a heavier emphasis on science etc. In addition to your profile classes you can select one (or more, if you're feeling ambitious) additional classes, from whatever the school is offering. In any case, after finishing high school the wonderful world of secondary education opens up.
Secondary education is split up into MBO, HBO and WO. MBO is basically trade school, students learn a trade like lumberjack, network administrator or dragonslayer. There's four levels at which a trade school student can finish MBO, each putting the graduates in a better pay scale. If an MBO student finishes with MBO at the highest level, they can move on to HBO, or enter the workforce.
HBO is sort of the half-way point between MBO and WO. HBO is fairly trade-oriented though it does delve into academics here and there. Alongside WO, it got turned on it's head a few years ago, as we adopted the whole bachelor/master system used by civilized folk. A typical HBO hands you your BS/BA/whatever after four years of study, after which you can enroll for an MS/MA. HBO doesn't offer doctorates, but it's possible, though hard, to enter a WO Master's program with a completed HBO degree. It's also possible, though requiring some juggling with classes taken and whatnot, to enter a WO undergrad program after completing your first year of HBO, and obtaining your "propedeuse".
That leaves WO, which is the smart kid of the bunch. Almost entirely academic, WO doesn't train students to pursue a certain career path, but in more general things like Computer Science, Celtic Literature or Economics. A typical WO BS/BA takes 3 years to get, after which students can automatically enroll in the Master's program portion of their degree, or attempt to enroll in one of the other Master's programs.
Master programs are again divided into different categories but I don't really know the skinny on that. You need a certain type of master if you want to try and get your PhD. PhD programs don't really exist in Holland, by the way, it's mainly you contacting universities and finding a place under some professor. Fun times.
Thus ends the technical bit of this post, omitting some details here and there.
Now, as for my opinion on our education system? It's shit. It apparently ranks pretty decently in the world, no doubt because of a standardised curriculum, but it's such a massive goddamn headache. Pulling some unsourced stats out of my ass here which I recall reading some time ago, approximately 65% of all students end up on VMBO. A good deal of students do eventually finish HAVO and get into real secondary education, but VMBO is largely treated as the disposable waste in the student body. MBO isn't much better, basically the education on this level is of very poor quality. And we send most of our students here, joy.
HAVO isn't much better, due to the borderline VMBO cases on both the student and teacher sides, though the HBO/WO distinction is definitely a good thing. It allows more practice-oriented students to get a useful education without having to sit through tons of lectures and whatnot, and allows the nerds to read a lot. VWO is probably the only type of high school here worth following for something besides the paper, it's apparently equivalent to taking multiple AP classes.
I have no real idea as to the quality of most secondary education here, but I hear largely bad things. The good things are nice, though, like automatic entrance to most degrees if you've got the requisite high school degree, low tuition costs and every student qualifying for some sort of student aid/loans to get through most of the costs.
As a nice example of how this bureaucratic mess can fuck someone over, I'll take myself as an example. Got in at VWO when I was 12, had some issues at the home front for the next years, affecting my grades. Instead of help from the schools I got put into HAVO, then VMBO. I got shit grades throughout these years because the material wasn't challenging enough and I was bored mindless, aced the VMBO finals because they're super easy, did 2 years of shit MBO ICT stuff at different places, wasted a year trying to find a different MBO, eventually decided to go back to high school and get my HAVO, did some other stuff on the side and now I'm 21, graduated from high school 2 weeks ago and can finally go on and study something interesting to me at WO. Not bitter at all.
TL;DR: Don't send your kids to Holland.
This right here. Why aren't schools fully federally funded, enough to have decent programs everywhere. Although, I wonder, for this to work, would we have to ban local tax levies from paying for schools? I'm not sure. Leaving them would keep disparity. But it might not be necessary as long as everyone at least has decent schools.
Why the hell aren't there reasonable(higher in my opinion) for math science and reading(ones that don't cut funding though).
but they're listening to every word I say
Maybe this is because you get to choose where you go to college, but (usually) not high school.
Even so, even with the same course in the same college, you'll often encounter major discrepancies from one semester to the next because the professor changes. Colleges still do a pretty good job of educating folks, and lately I've heard high school in the US is going down the shitter. I can't help but wonder whether the amount of trust and control given to college professors in designing their courses (as opposed to saddling them with standardized curricula) is one part of that.
Republicans don't want things handled at a federal level.
I'm sorry I have nothing useful to contribute. Oh god this did not deserve to be TOTP.
college courses are all over the map though. some can be good, some can suck really bad and you learn nothing. So, iunno if that would be so great for highschool.
but they're listening to every word I say
I wouldn't want a nationally uniform curriculum.
Our national government is periodically run by people whose political center of gravity is Oklahoma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland
Best thing IMO here? Universities are free. You need to pay for living, food and other stuff, yes, but you get a student loan for that. It means that no matter how poor you are, if you study hard you can get anywhere. Literally. We got presidents who have been born totally poor and have had to work their way up there.
Or rather: Republicans don't want things handled by the government at any level at all when they could instead be privatized.
60% is not a high mark :x
The history curriculum is pretty politicised, but that's a universal problem. The tertiary sector has a lot more problems than child-education here, I think.
Republicans want to sell America to the highest bidder.
Also, I think a happy medium can be struck between the absurd level of local control and rote federalism. America is a big country with diverse needs.
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I think he meant marks in the upper range of 60-70%.
But let's see... we've got an interesting education system currently in place in New Zealand secondary schools (for teenagers ~14-18). It's currently under a decade old. Unfortunately, I cannot speak from first hand experience, as I finished secondary education a few years before the new system was implemented.
The new system is called NCEA and it's a rather interesting system. From what I can tell, each subject is now called a "standard", and there are only four grades you can obtain (well, technically five if you count the "didn't even bother to turn up to the exam" fail grade). The top grade is "Excellence", the next grade being "Merit", the next grade being "Achievement", and the failed (but tried!) grade is "Not achieved". So three grades for passing.
In attempting to figure out a student's grade, questions are grouped in the "Achievement" level questions, the "Merit" level questions and the "Excellence" level questions. A student needs to answer a certain proportion of the achievement level questions correctly to gain the Achievement grade. Similarly, a certain proportion of merit/excellence level questions must be answered correctly to gain the Merit/Excellence grade.
I remember in the papers a while back that there was a big noise about how some students answered the Merit/Excellence questions correctly - but tripped up in the Achievement questions, and so technically did not meet the requirements for the lowest "Achievement" grade. Subsequently, the answers to the Merit/Excellence questions did not factor into their grade. I assume that they've since fixed that problem, but I haven't been keeping track of the exact details.
There are a few more details of NCEA that I've left out (e.g. each standard being worth credits, and a student needing a certain number of credits to graduate with a "Level 3 NCEA" accreditation), but they don't seem to be as interesting as the grading within the standard itself.
Edit: Ha! Beaten by L|ama =P
Of course, the reason that million dollar referendums are passed on a regular basis is because the area is both wealthy and majority parent. So the conditions for such an education system are rather rare.
this is a stupid statement on many levels
first of all there is something to be said for practicing the basics of mathematics. I am not a fan of the old "drill and kill" mentality but there are times when it is appropriate to do a similar process over and over to understand it (i.e. practice makes perfect, factoring is an example of an appropriate time for this).
Now doing something like these so called "hard problems" almost always require the above skills, and they're great enrichment for the kids who can do the above. When you go straight to the hard one you might get more of the why but less of the how. There are students that really love to see the ridiculously complex problems right off the bat sort of as a motivation, but most of us don't learn that way. Start small, build on what you know.
Also keep in mind you have a terribly small sample of math teachers, and it may be your experience that you had some old school teachers. Don't speak for all of us (I teach high school math).
If its under 85%, I don't want to hear anyone bragging about it. 85% is a B, and let me tell you its hell on earth trying to work with a professional counterpart who averaged less than 75-80% in their courses.