The Education System

After quickly skimming over my associates’ blog post, I notice that some of his thoughts differ from mine. So I’ll state my position on school.

You do learn stuff from school, it may not be useful, it may not be good, and it could certainly be better; but it’s just not interesting. I think that’s the reason why I dislike school so much. When I don’t care much for a class, I’m learning something that doesn’t really spark my interest enough and it is rather dull.

Some teachers can be rather restrictive in whatever the student may or may not want to use, be it writing utensils or essay subject.

Critical thinking is probably the biggest problem in schools today. Schools should teach students how to think, not what to think. Students with better critical thinking skills would have easier times in classes.

Schools should be more flexible to suit the interests of the students. It’s better to have the students comfortable with the style of teaching and the work that’s being given. i.e. If a student is more suited to taking notes, give him or her a teacher whom gives mostly notes. If a student is more suited to discussions give him or her a teacher whom discusses classroom topics. There is a huge logistical problem with this, and it probably will never happen until we hit the point where we are able to create artificial intelligences capable of providing an education to students.

I think having a comfortable student and teaching critical thinking are the two most important things you can do to improve education today.

School: “Learning”?

Face it. In school we learn nothing. Aside from maybe some formulas or something, most of the content you learn doesn’t really pertain to you unless your career is related to it. And even that kind of stuff, you aren’t learning. I quote an old teacher of mine (and I paraphrase here).

The only thing we learn in school is regurgitation.

Quite so. We are not actually learning, like we do at home or as toddlers – where we learn from “trial and error” and the likes. All we do is get random facts hammered into our brains. Then a week later, we don’t utilize those facts – all we had to do was memorize them. Then we spit them back out onto a test. Hooray, I passed the test. Then you forget this information. That was very helpful.

Of course there’s tons of excuses the districts and all have. But it’s apparent for everyone, even most teachers, that we aren’t actually learning too much that will be put to use – especially when we don’t have a choice in what to learn (at least not to a specific point).

I learned more over the summer that’ll be put to use in my future than I will in school this year – even silly things such as how to navigate the towering aisles of our local Benjamin Moore.

It sounds like a useless point of information, but I tell you this much – it will be much more useful in my life than learning about the Electoral College (which equally sucks by the way).

And perhaps the most notable point of all - you should find something you are good at and enjoy and study it. We can’t do that in school.

Now I must leave you for a time, because I think the Principal has arrived at my doorstep with his harpoon gun.

Binder Hate

I hate binders. I really do. Those stupid three ring binders take up so much space. And the mass to volume ratio is low. I hate them; they are absolutely fucking huge. For me to write in them I need to assume an uncomfortable writing stance.

Now this wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I wasn’t forced to use a binder. But, what do you know? I’m forced to use a binder.

Now really. If a student doesn’t want to use a binder is that really so bad? Yes, handouts will be easier to lose, but I am willing to take upon that responsibility in exchange for comfort with materials that I am comfortable using.

That’s why I have a Top 100 Reasons Why We Hate Three Ring Binders list in each of my binders.

Oh, binders are in league with Comic Sans too.