Purpose of Education \ stacker news ~Education

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242 sats \ 16 comments \ @cryotosensei 10h Education

“Education today should involve more than the study of academic subjects.” How far do you agree?

The world today is fraught with complex challenges that require people from various fields to collaborate and solve by using their joint expertise. Since children and teenagers are deemed to be the future pillars of society, it is imperative that the education system equips them for the knowledge and skills necessary for them to succeed in this rapidly changing world. Unlike in the past, education authorities must not only teach students academic subjects, but also channel their efforts into developing students’ problem-solving skills, safeguarding their mental well-being and preparing them to be lifelong learners. I opine that a holistic educational approach that infuses the instruction of academic subjects with other disciplines is the key to nurturing our young in today’s educational system.

Literacy and numeracy skills still remain relevant and beneficial in today’s world. Notwithstanding the quantum leap in artificial intelligence, students must comprehend and process the information available to them at their fingertips. Thus, it makes sense for teachers to teach their students how to read, write and do arithmetic problems so that the latter are empowered to develop their intellectual capabilities and be discerning consumers of information. Besides English and Mathematics, other academic subjects are essential to help prepare students for the future. For instance, Singapore has introduced new GCE “O” Level subjects for secondary school students, among which Computing and Drama are examples. Computing imbues students with the ability to code, whereas Drama enables them to understand more about the human condition. If the instruction of academic subjects is not emphasised in schools, students would not be able to acquire a baseline of knowledge that would let them navigate today’s complex realities. However, schools must complement their instructional programmes with an intentional approach to groom students in an all-rounded manner.

Schools would do well to impart their students with problem-solving skills. Since problems that plague the world today are often multifaceted in nature, students need to understand myriad perspectives and synthesise knowledge from various disciplines to tackle such challenges effectively. Not only that, they have to learn how to collaborate with their peers because working in cohesive teams allows them to leverage one another’s strengths and conceive more comprehensive solutions. This desire to nurture its young to become competent and cooperative problem-solvers is the reason why the Finnish educational system has introduced Phenomenon-based Learning (PhenoBL) to great success. Students are given the autonomy to select the phenomena and apply inquiry-based strategies to investigate it. Therefore, in today’s globalised world, educators must be mindful to guide their charges to apply hard knowledge from academic subjects in multidisciplinary ways.

Another vital responsibility of schools is equipping students with the skills to manage their well-being. The rapid advancement in technology has led to our young facing stress from multiple sources, such as online bullying and traditional jobs being rendered redundant. Coupled with the fact that many families choose to have less children, students today often find it hard to build solid friendships and confide their problems.

[to be continued]

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35 sats \ 11 replies \ @SimpleStacker 10h

It depends who's saying it and what "non-academic" subjects they are pushing to teach.

Many in the US will push to teach kids to focus on historical grievances and political activism. I disagree with these people and think they are damaging the minds of young individuals.

Others may want to teach kids more vocational skills, or life skills like personal finance. I am on the side of these people. I think it's criminal that many students graduate high school and even college and don't know what a bond is, or how to calculate return on investment.

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @AJ1992 8h

That's not accurate, no public school in the nation is pushing kids to become political activists. Informing students about history is essential so we don't repeat it, as we are unfortunately seeing right now with the actions being taken by the Trump administration. Just because the facts of history make.white people look bad doesn't mean we shouldn't teach it. The real goal here is to try and rewrite textbooks to keep students from learning about these past atrocities and events so they can be repeated. Also, it's a well known fact that the states that score the worst in the country academically for the most part are red states. The actions the Republicans take in attempts to defund public education and try and force universities to bow to their agenda is all because Republican politicians know that if they can keep these young people uneducated they can convince them to vote for them. The war on public education is real and it's scary. TEACHING HISTORY ACCURATELY IS NOT POLITICAL. ITS SIMPLY PRESENTING THE FACTS.

9 sats \ 3 replies \ @stack_harder 6h

the problem with history is that people don't agree on facts , outside of the very basic 'person was born in this year, person died this year'. This battle was won/lost.

Russia has changed its school history syllabus like 3 times in a decade and every new version is presented in as the absolute 'truth'

History is about looking at the past and the events and thinking about who reported what and what their bias was/is and how a situation was perceived by all parties , it's not a hard science

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @TNStacker 4h

It is as hard as any other science. All science is only as relevant as the currently known facts. It all adapts and adjusts over time. It is called progress.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 4h

the problem is, one man's facts are another man's lies, outside of very generic history facts like caser was killed in X by X.

Pol Pot thought he was a great guy until he died and didn't think he did anything wrong. People will say Stalin was a great leader and nobody can agree on how many deaths he caused, or if he caused them

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 2h

I'm sorry, but your arguments are weak and seem uninformed. What does Pol Pots thoughts or opinions have to do with facts. His regime rided the society of educated people. As this one seems to want to do, by the way.

Facts are facts and lies are lies and even if the majority believes the lie - it does not change the facts.

Recorded history is, of course, subject to human fallicy. This is why it is correctible.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @billytheked 2h

Reminds me of the saying, you may not be interested in politics but politics is interested in you.

Education is inherently political.

I'd hazard to suggest that politics is one way in which society organizes and tries to reconcile its collective biases. Education seeks to systematize them.

Some of the Soviets took this idea to its extreme.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 2h

Education is inherently political.

I'd agree or disagree depending what you mean by that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @billytheked 1h

There's lots to unpack, but there's two main angles:

Education vis à vis the act of educating
- any teacher, administrator or even parent that sets about educating the youth has to make curriculum choices based on the temporal relevance of a topic.
- relevance based on perceived temporal (non-)importance of a topic (e.g. Capernican heresy)
Education vis à vis public education (or the bureaucraric machine)
- just about everyone in society has a stake in it
- political ramifications in every systematic/policy choice

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 3h

In public schools, there's a lot of very poor quality teaching going on, even in vocational classes. And I'm talking about "good" public schools, not inner-city hellscapes.

For instance, a young person I know was taking a cooking class. It was overall not terrible, but:

The teacher was absent a lot. Lots of teachers are gone a lot. Then you have a substitute. The substitute is NOT allowed to actually let the kids cook! So they have to read about cooking, or watch a video. Probably less than half the time are they actually cooking.
Most of the time, the kids were taught to make sugary crap - cakes, cookies, sweet crepes, etc. Very little of "here's how to cook a decent, healthy meal".

Another example - I took a woodworking evening class at a public high school recently. I had high hopes, but the actual teaching was absolutely miserable.

It made me sick to see tens of thousands of dollars of woodworking equipment so poorly treated. Very expensive equipment, not even any simple instructions on how to use it. Lots and lots of expensive wood, wasted because of easily avoidable issues.
The woodworking teacher was awful. He picked a really complicated project, using the most complex equipment, and was then often unavailable to show us how to use it. Out of 6 students, only 1 finished the project (the one with prior experience).

Good teaching, with good, high quality teachers, is very rare in the public school system.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 4h

Do you think any worthwhile lessons are conveyed through AP History courses?

We face a similar situation in Singapore. Let me zoom in on financial literacy. We do have those classes, but we sound like a broken record since the main thrust of these lessons tends to be spend below your means and differentiate between needs and wants for both primary and secondary school students. Like duh. How often do you want to repeat the same mundane stuff?

But as a teacher at the frontlines, I dare say that our curriculum lacks the space to incorporate all these useful things. Just this term alone, I had to ensure that all my form class students completed an online lesson on 1) drug prevention, 2) AI literacy and 3) water conservation. Their minds are bombarded left right and centre, and I’m barely surviving in this cramped system myself haha

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 2h

Financial literacy includes being able understand what an interest rate is, what are the different types of loans, credit cards, checking and savings accounts, retirement plans, insurance, mortgages, business loans, different types of corporations, etc, etc. All of these things, kids come out of school knowing very little about, but these are a part of everyday lfie.

It would be easy to fill a semester of financial literacy, imo.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 6h

In an ideal world, schools would be doing all this, but 99% of schools in the world are of the old cookie-cutter model that dates back to an industrial age when the goal was to train factory drones to be obedient workers for 10 hours a day or whatever. obey authority, don't question what you're told, suppress any thoughts that might get you in trouble.

the people in teach the subjects themselves are usually woefully under-equipped; they don't understand what is coming in the future, finance, economics, and emotional health. then on top of that, they have dick head parents to deal with who probably spend 2 hours a day with their own children and want to outsource their whole upbringing to a school, which is basically a government institution.

But in a nutshell, sure, education should also be teaching soft skills, emotional intelligence, and solution-based thinking. The future of work and jobs is probably going to look very different and the education system should also be adapting

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 4h

💯

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 5h

Keep it simple. Study and excel in subjects you are interested in. Aim to be the best or be satisfied being in the top 10-20% of that particular field.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 4h

Don't just study what you are interested in. Be curious, and become interested in more of what you study.