I'd just like to chip in that I realized today a grand majority of my time in secondary school was entirely meaningless on an educational level.
Honestly, I strongly believe that knowledge and curiosity are some of the most important things in the world (including knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which means that algebra is nice to know even if you're going to be a baker) and yet I still think that a scarily large amount of my secondary schooling was complete and utter bullocks that I could of completely skipped. Not to mention all the completely false and inaccurate things they've taught us, like in history, which I would later find out about by fucking reading actual historical sources instead of school textbooks written by people who are *literally* not qualified for the job -- I'm not talking creationism vs. evolution or anything (that's not even an issue here) -- I'm talking "Galileo was condemned to death by the Church because of his heliocentric theories", which in some cases continued into college (said Galileo claim being an example).
Remember that these are supposed to be fucking professionals who know what the fuck they're talking about (or should at least stick to their own damn subject during class). But then you have the cocky Astronomy 101 college professor who wants to give us a philosophy/history lesson on how some silly people believe in something called "God" but not the Big Bang (which is nowhere near being a unanimous opinion in the scientific community) and how Copernicus was excommunicated on his deathbed (which, of course, is complete and utter bullshit he took out of his ass (humanshit?)). Or how a French teacher I once had also took out of his ass that Voltaire, while criticizing slavery in his writings, sold slaves as a day job. Yes. Fucking Voltaire. This is the same teacher who on the first day of the semester, read us a dictation about Galileo *hint hint*. It just boggles my mind that they would actually throw this around at their leisure. Thank goodness that at my current college, everything our teachers say seems to be rather informed.
All that aside, (in grade school specifically, now) we would pretty much always see the same material every single year in most classes. History classes were 75% about the Second World War, 20% Canadian/Quebecois history. 5% was everything else (i.e. MOST OF HISTORY). Hell, we learned next to nothing about American history. In French, we'd almost always learn about the same figures of speech, methods for creative writing and parts of sentences.
This is why I learned (and I think most people would agree) so much more outside of school, even back when I didn't care at all about education. Ethics and religious education classes were seances of indoctrination almost nobody actually took seriously, which almost didn't touch at all on ethics or religious education (it talked more about things such as how Amnesty International is like, the greatest thing ever, to use a condom, and why anyone who shows any hint of critical thinking by disagreeing gets an F). Ethics and religious education (or philosophy in general) should be one of if not the most important subject in my opinion, and we didn't even have that. We had "the death penalty is bad, mkaaayy?". I don't even care if most of what they taught, I now or have always agreed with; this is NOT what philosophy is about. We've had a couple debates in school (which we didn't choose sides to be on, though that can actually be a really good thing), but in our language classes, for some reason.
All in all, screw the reform. Nobody, absolutely nobody who was a teacher, parent or student agreed with it, and my grade was the guinea pig for it (as in, we were the first to test it to see if it didn't breed complete fucking morons).
All this to say, the educational system here needs some serious revamping.
I've never voted. I don't really follow any of it so I don't even know what I'd be voting for. This extent of my knowledge is when the ads run on TV and my brothers and I just make up much better smear campaigns for all the candidates :o
If I had voted I would have just voted for whoever is running against our current governer (because 100% of her campaign ads were her talking about how much better she was than our last governer, despite the fact that everyone knows he's a piece of shit who embezzled millions of dollars through "official" purchases like a fucking private jet.) And after that I would have just picked completely at random. So I don't feel like my vote would have been very helpful.
You can vote for some things and not others. Today I voted for the positions I was educated on but not on the elections I didn't really follow.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is I'm not actually educated about any of the positions, except that one of the candidates is bad.
(11-04-2014, 02:46 AM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ]I'd just like to chip in that I realized today a grand majority of my time in secondary school was entirely meaningless on an educational level.
Honestly, I strongly believe that knowledge and curiosity are some of the most important things in the world (including knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which means that algebra is nice to know even if you're going to be a baker) and yet I still think that a scarily large amount of my secondary schooling was complete and utter bullocks that I could of completely skipped. Not to mention all the completely false and inaccurate things they've taught us, like in history, which I would later find out about by fucking reading actual historical sources instead of school textbooks written by people who are *literally* not qualified for the job -- I'm not talking creationism vs. evolution or anything (that's not even an issue here) -- I'm talking "Galileo was condemned to death by the Church because of his heliocentric theories", which in some cases continued into college (said Galileo claim being an example).
Remember that these are supposed to be fucking professionals who know what the fuck they're talking about (or should at least stick to their own damn subject during class). But then you have the cocky Astronomy 101 college professor who wants to give us a philosophy/history lesson on how some silly people believe in something called "God" but not the Big Bang (which is nowhere near being a unanimous opinion in the scientific community) and how Copernicus was excommunicated on his deathbed (which, of course, is complete and utter bullshit he took out of his ass (humanshit?)). Or how a French teacher I once had also took out of his ass that Voltaire, while criticizing slavery in his writings, sold slaves as a day job. Yes. Fucking Voltaire. This is the same teacher who on the first day of the semester, read us a dictation about Galileo *hint hint*. It just boggles my mind that they would actually throw this around at their leisure. Thank goodness that at my current college, everything our teachers say seems to be rather informed.
All that aside, (in grade school specifically, now) we would pretty much always see the same material every single year in most classes. History classes were 75% about the Second World War, 20% Canadian/Quebecois history. 5% was everything else (i.e. MOST OF HISTORY). Hell, we learned next to nothing about American history. In French, we'd almost always learn about the same figures of speech, methods for creative writing and parts of sentences.
This is why I learned (and I think most people would agree) so much more outside of school, even back when I didn't care at all about education. Ethics and religious education classes were seances of indoctrination almost nobody actually took seriously, which almost didn't touch at all on ethics or religious education (it talked more about things such as how Amnesty International is like, the greatest thing ever, to use a condom, and why anyone who shows any hint of critical thinking by disagreeing gets an F). Ethics and religious education (or philosophy in general) should be one of if not the most important subject in my opinion, and we didn't even have that. We had "the death penalty is bad, mkaaayy?". I don't even care if most of what they taught, I now or have always agreed with; this is NOT what philosophy is about. We've had a couple debates in school (which we didn't choose sides to be on, though that can actually be a really good thing), but in our language classes, for some reason.
All in all, screw the reform. Nobody, absolutely nobody who was a teacher, parent or student agreed with it, and my grade was the guinea pig for it (as in, we were the first to test it to see if it didn't breed complete fucking morons).
All this to say, the educational system here needs some serious revamping.
the problem with school being meaningless on an educational level is that the curriculum is naturally dictated by the pace of the class as a whole - not individuals. i spent most of that time being bored out of my skull simply because the pacing of the knowledge is not set by the brightest.
pretty striking how different the quebec curriculum was relative to the ontario curriculum. regardless, one of the main issues with the current system is simply that the current way we value teachers economically and socially does not properly line-up with their importance to education and society in general. in many cases becoming a teacher is a relatively simple thing to do in order to guarantee some form of job prospects if you are not bright enough to make it in that field as a true academic or in some other limited capacity.
while some curriculum is not designed appropriately, my first point is what i would point to for describing the bulk of the issues on that front. this is mainly mitigated by fixing my second point. having a higher standard of teachers and educators allows for the bright students that are not being fulfilled academically to find that fulfillment and find some meaning to their time spent in school.
that was the big thing i noticed. i could instantly tell the quality of a teacher because the good teachers would find a way to keep me engaged and interested in the class even though the pacing was very far removed from what would be considered ideal to my individual progression.
for the classes i had bad teachers i simply would go to the creek, smoke drugs and take the occasional nap. i knew all the material and i would only go to class when it was time to essentially demonstrate that i was competent. this was essentially when my experience mirrored yours in terms of quality of education. it was primarily a waste of my time and sapped my desire to learn entirely.
but there were teachers where i had genuinely good teachers. even though they were bound by the framework and policy of education they still managed to engage the kids that were sort of left twiddling their thumbs because they already knew what the curriculum was taking a century to outline (and usually to much greater depth). not that i'm trying to pat myself on the back mind you, i'm not a particularly intelligent or bright person. but this is essentially the main issue with the education system. a lot of the people that would make excellent teachers are simply not becoming teachers. they are going into more profitable fields or sticking to higher echelons of academia.
there are a lot of good teachers out there and hopefully one day i can consider myself as one of those good teachers. but ultimately the only driving factor for this is a moral one with just as many teachers going into the field as a safety net or a pragmatic choice.
true reform of the education system requires serious overhaul and comes with it significant costs. it's better to reform the system in more manageable steps and actively work on improving the quality of educators as they can work around a flawed system to genuinely create real gains in terms of quality of education and the quality of future generations in general.
apologies if this comes across as a little disjointed or rambling. multi-tasking.
(11-05-2014, 05:16 AM)carlcockatoo Wrote: [ -> ]You can vote for some things and not others. Today I voted for the positions I was educated on but not on the elections I didn't really follow.
a better solution would likely be to educate yourself on the positions that you are uneducated in, but hey beats not voting at all (remotely).
(11-03-2014, 10:14 PM)Danjo Wrote: [ -> ]I strongly disagree with you. I think curricula standardized by the government and not by academic consensus is the worst thing that has ever happened to public education. I don't think electing politicians to fix the problems in education is any different than electing politicians to fix the problems with the grand unifying theory in physics. It simply isn't any of their business. There are people who study the issues in education and conduct experiments with different teaching styles and methods and they are not politicians, they are teachers and psychologists.
I do agree that schools should be accountable to the public, but it should be through direct interaction with teachers and principles, not through executive oversight.
Do you not understand the point I am making? The concept is that the people educated in those fields run based off their experience, ideology and platforms.. It's simply creating accountability..
Politicans are not inherently experienced in nothing outside of politics. Whether this happens or not is an entirely different discussion as my post was simply explaining the mentality behind the current system since that was evidently lost.
I get you. For me, usually I understand the issues but don't care enough about the elections because they never really do anything to fix the issues. We can talk about budgets and 'Christian values' all you want but that has nothing to do with the issues actually affecting people.
Anyway, I'm pretty sad with the results. I helped save you all from Andy Tobin, but 'GOD FAMILY COUNTRY/CLOSE THE BORDER' man beat out the sensible candidate for the state elections, and the person I mentioned earlier who's entire campaign revolved around forcing conservative values into our schools beat the person who actually discussed education lol.
omfg people voted for this too:
Peternorthstars, I took note of your reply and I'll answer it when I have more time on my hands (perhaps later tonight).
(11-05-2014, 08:28 PM)carlcockatoo Wrote: [ -> ]I get you. For me, usually I understand the issues but don't care enough about the elections because they never really do anything to fix the issues. We can talk about budgets and 'Christian values' all you want but that has nothing to do with the issues actually affecting people.
I just need clarification; don't the gay marriage and abortion debates affect society? Or did I just misunderstand your post?
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]the problem with school being meaningless on an educational level is that the curriculum is naturally dictated by the pace of the class as a whole - not individuals. i spent most of that time being bored out of my skull simply because the pacing of the knowledge is not set by the brightest.
I agree. This is why for a while now I've been wondering whether we should just completely eliminate schools and educate all children at home or with a tutor. Or heck, just in small groups. Although perhaps some students function better in large classes.
School as we know it now could exist on a collegiate and/or university level, as I believe it doesn't particularly need this other format since people go to college mostly to learn a specific trade.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]pretty striking how different the quebec curriculum was relative to the ontario curriculum. regardless, one of the main issues with the current system is simply that the current way we value teachers economically and socially does not properly line-up with their importance to education and society in general. in many cases becoming a teacher is a relatively simple thing to do in order to guarantee some form of job prospects if you are not bright enough to make it in that field as a true academic or in some other limited capacity.
I guess the saying is true; those who can't do, teach.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]while some curriculum is not designed appropriately, my first point is what i would point to for describing the bulk of the issues on that front. this is mainly mitigated by fixing my second point. having a higher standard of teachers and educators allows for the bright students that are not being fulfilled academically to find that fulfillment and find some meaning to their time spent in school.
Makes sense.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]that was the big thing i noticed. i could instantly tell the quality of a teacher because the good teachers would find a way to keep me engaged and interested in the class even though the pacing was very far removed from what would be considered ideal to my individual progression.
Also makes sense, but it goes without saying that the most important thing is that the class is understandable.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]for the classes i had bad teachers i simply would go to the creek, smoke drugs and take the occasional nap. i knew all the material and i would only go to class when it was time to essentially demonstrate that i was competent. this was essentially when my experience mirrored yours in terms of quality of education. it was primarily a waste of my time and sapped my desire to learn entirely.
In high school though you wouldn't even THINK of skipping class. That could wind in deep trouble. Simply because you skipped, which means that it's irrelevant to whether you understand the subject. I don't know if this is the case in Ontario.
As for college, you can skip class if you want, but in most cases (some teachers are lenient) you only have so many absences allotted to you, which means that you can only miss so many classes before you automatically flunk. Again, I don't know if this is also the case in Ontario.
All this to say that we both agree on that point -- that some classes/periods are unnecessary to some students.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]but there were teachers where i had genuinely good teachers. even though they were bound by the framework and policy of education they still managed to engage the kids that were sort of left twiddling their thumbs because they already knew what the curriculum was taking a century to outline (and usually to much greater depth). not that i'm trying to pat myself on the back mind you, i'm not a particularly intelligent or bright person. but this is essentially the main issue with the education system. a lot of the people that would make excellent teachers are simply not becoming teachers. they are going into more profitable fields or sticking to higher echelons of academia.
Makes a lot of sense. I could have sworn that in my original post I had mentioned that some potentially good teachers still had to follow the curriculum. Yeah, I'm sure that if they chose what to teach, some (but by no means all) of them would have been fruitful to me. Like I said, nobody outside the minister of education agreed with the reform.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]there are a lot of good teachers out there and hopefully one day i can consider myself as one of those good teachers. but ultimately the only driving factor for this is a moral one with just as many teachers going into the field as a safety net or a pragmatic choice.
Yeah.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]true reform of the education system requires serious overhaul and comes with it significant costs. it's better to reform the system in more manageable steps and actively work on improving the quality of educators as they can work around a flawed system to genuinely create real gains in terms of quality of education and the quality of future generations in general.
All reasonable. It's probably going to be hard what with the recent student strikes a couple years ago where everyone wanted free education.
(11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]apologies if this comes across as a little disjointed or rambling. multi-tasking.
No probski.
(11-06-2014, 04:23 AM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ] (11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]the problem with school being meaningless on an educational level is that the curriculum is naturally dictated by the pace of the class as a whole - not individuals. i spent most of that time being bored out of my skull simply because the pacing of the knowledge is not set by the brightest.
I agree. This is why for a while now I've been wondering whether we should just completely eliminate schools and educate all children at home or with a tutor. Or heck, just in small groups. Although perhaps some students function better in large classes.
I don't think that is a good option. When I was still in school I would likely have agreed with that. With a bit more perspective I think that good teachers are incredibly important for increasing the quality of education for students and as a result improving our society as a whole. Otherwise there is a pretty hefty barrier both by stretching educators thin and increasing costs.
Quote:School as we know it now could exist on a collegiate and/or university level, as I believe it doesn't particularly need this other format since people go to college mostly to learn a specific trade.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, have to be honest. As in teaching content at a university level?
Quote: (11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]pretty striking how different the quebec curriculum was relative to the ontario curriculum. regardless, one of the main issues with the current system is simply that the current way we value teachers economically and socially does not properly line-up with their importance to education and society in general. in many cases becoming a teacher is a relatively simple thing to do in order to guarantee some form of job prospects if you are not bright enough to make it in that field as a true academic or in some other limited capacity.
I guess the saying is true; those who can't do, teach.
For the bad ones absolutely. :p
Quote: (11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]for the classes i had bad teachers i simply would go to the creek, smoke drugs and take the occasional nap. i knew all the material and i would only go to class when it was time to essentially demonstrate that i was competent. this was essentially when my experience mirrored yours in terms of quality of education. it was primarily a waste of my time and sapped my desire to learn entirely.
In high school though you wouldn't even THINK of skipping class. That could wind in deep trouble. Simply because you skipped, which means that it's irrelevant to whether you understand the subject. I don't know if this is the case in Ontario.
Nah, I skipped all the time. There was an automated system that would phone home and detail all of the classes you skipped. But I managed to rig it so that system would call my cell rather than my parents. We would also just "go to the bathroom" for like 20 minutes and go hang out lol.
Quote:As for college, you can skip class if you want, but in most cases (some teachers are lenient) you only have so many absences allotted to you, which means that you can only miss so many classes before you automatically flunk. Again, I don't know if this is also the case in Ontario.
I believe so, but it was also a pretty reasonable number. I skipped an unreasonable amount of time and never had this be an issue.
Quote:All this to say that we both agree on that point -- that some classes/periods are unnecessary to some students.
Heh, I guess. There are a lot of ways that this could be theoretically fixed with our fancy twenty first century technology.
Quote: (11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]but there were teachers where i had genuinely good teachers. even though they were bound by the framework and policy of education they still managed to engage the kids that were sort of left twiddling their thumbs because they already knew what the curriculum was taking a century to outline (and usually to much greater depth). not that i'm trying to pat myself on the back mind you, i'm not a particularly intelligent or bright person. but this is essentially the main issue with the education system. a lot of the people that would make excellent teachers are simply not becoming teachers. they are going into more profitable fields or sticking to higher echelons of academia.
Makes a lot of sense. I could have sworn that in my original post I had mentioned that some potentially good teachers still had to follow the curriculum. Yeah, I'm sure that if they chose what to teach, some (but by no means all) of them would have been fruitful to me. Like I said, nobody outside the minister of education agreed with the reform.
I'm not sure exactly what the deal is in Quebec. Here there is a sort of set curriculum of knowledge the teachers are expected to pass to the kids. But there is also quite a bit of leeway in how they go about doing it. Do they have strict lesson plans or something?
Quote: (11-05-2014, 08:20 PM)peternorthstars Wrote: [ -> ]true reform of the education system requires serious overhaul and comes with it significant costs. it's better to reform the system in more manageable steps and actively work on improving the quality of educators as they can work around a flawed system to genuinely create real gains in terms of quality of education and the quality of future generations in general.
All reasonable. It's probably going to be hard what with the recent student strikes a couple years ago where everyone wanted free education.
I'm not exactly sure how that is relevant. It's not like students have to take on debt at 14 to go to high school. The problem is that nobody wants to invest in education and invest in future generations. There's that immediacy to politics that doesn't translate itself well to making sacrifices to invest in something that won't see benefits for 10-20 years. This is pretty fundamental to Canada's existence outside of education considering what our economy consists of.
(11-05-2014, 08:28 PM)carlcockatoo Wrote: [ -> ]I get you. For me, usually I understand the issues but don't care enough about the elections because they never really do anything to fix the issues. We can talk about budgets and 'Christian values' all you want but that has nothing to do with the issues actually affecting people.
Anyway, I'm pretty sad with the results. I helped save you all from Andy Tobin, but 'GOD FAMILY COUNTRY/CLOSE THE BORDER' man beat out the sensible candidate for the state elections, and the person I mentioned earlier who's entire campaign revolved around forcing conservative values into our schools beat the person who actually discussed education lol.
omfg people voted for this too:
I understand exactly how frustrating voting can be, believe me. I just feel a certain civic duty to at least educate myself and do my tiny, irrelevant part. I usually vote for the green party man. ( :rasta: )
and jeez, lol.