We need good education. We face so many problems.
Babies are born addicted to drugs. Children are denigrated by their parents. Children are bullied by their peers. Teenagers have guns, and kill people. People face long-term unemployment, because once you are unemployed, employers think there must be something wrong with you so they won't hire you. People get beaten for being transgender, or for being Muslim. Political commentators use misleading statements and doctored videos to sow divisiveness and hatred. People get so worked up about things that aren't even true -- the idea that President Obama was not born in U.S., or that Park51 is to be a "Ground Zero Mosque," while our planet is suffering the effects of climate change, including floods, drought, hurricanes, and heat waves.
We need technical knowledge of science and engineering. We need people with skills in policymaking. We need people who can help us transcend divisiveness and hatred, and work together to solve our problems. We need journalists and historians and librarians to help us build our knowledge. If we are going to address the problems of the world, we need people with many different areas of knowledge to work together. We need everyone to contribute. And that is why we need education, to create a world in which everyone is equipped to contribute.
Monday, May 30, 2011
The goal of education should be learning
My experience of school was that in K-12, we were there because we had to be there, and we did boring homework because we had to. When I got to college, I was at a school I chose, studying what I chose to study, and my feeling was, "why did they never tell us before this that school could be interesting?"
However, many students feel about college they way I did before college. I have been reading some comments at http://www.studentsreview.com. Students write things like, "the social life is awful. The adminstration is really starting to crack down on drinking and parties making the social life even worse. They care more about their reputation than students having fun."
When my great grandfather was starting college, his father told him, "you can send a boy to college, but you cannot make him think." My great grandfather took this as a positive challenge, and chose to think.
Students feel they need to go to college in order to get a job, and yet, they don't really want to partake of the academic offerings. What can we do? Is the system all wrong? It seems to me that the educational system should be suited to students' interests (giving them skills they need to succeed in life after graduation), and it should be rigorous. That is, students should know that there are certain standards they will have to meet in order to be successful in their chosen career. Education should be aimed at helping them develop the skills they need. A degree should signify that the student has achieved a certain level of knowledge and skill, rather than signifying that a student has sat through a certain number of classes. Students may not know exactly what career they want to follow, so they should be able to try several different areas before deciding which to pursue. Education should also cover the knowledge that all should have. For example, people need to know some history, so that we don't repeat our mistakes, and people need critical thinking, so that they can recognize false claims.
In a sense, this is how our educational system is already structured. Students focus their study on a particular subject, their future career field, while also studying the areas which all people should know. However, it has gotten to be more about the structure of the educational system -- you need a degree to get a job, and you need to take certain classes to get a degree. We tend to lose sight of the fact that the real goal is that you need certain knowledge and skills in order to be able to succeed in life. Students go to school because they need a degree, not because they need knowledge.
However, many students feel about college they way I did before college. I have been reading some comments at http://www.studentsreview.com. Students write things like, "the social life is awful. The adminstration is really starting to crack down on drinking and parties making the social life even worse. They care more about their reputation than students having fun."
When my great grandfather was starting college, his father told him, "you can send a boy to college, but you cannot make him think." My great grandfather took this as a positive challenge, and chose to think.
Students feel they need to go to college in order to get a job, and yet, they don't really want to partake of the academic offerings. What can we do? Is the system all wrong? It seems to me that the educational system should be suited to students' interests (giving them skills they need to succeed in life after graduation), and it should be rigorous. That is, students should know that there are certain standards they will have to meet in order to be successful in their chosen career. Education should be aimed at helping them develop the skills they need. A degree should signify that the student has achieved a certain level of knowledge and skill, rather than signifying that a student has sat through a certain number of classes. Students may not know exactly what career they want to follow, so they should be able to try several different areas before deciding which to pursue. Education should also cover the knowledge that all should have. For example, people need to know some history, so that we don't repeat our mistakes, and people need critical thinking, so that they can recognize false claims.
In a sense, this is how our educational system is already structured. Students focus their study on a particular subject, their future career field, while also studying the areas which all people should know. However, it has gotten to be more about the structure of the educational system -- you need a degree to get a job, and you need to take certain classes to get a degree. We tend to lose sight of the fact that the real goal is that you need certain knowledge and skills in order to be able to succeed in life. Students go to school because they need a degree, not because they need knowledge.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Excuses
The article On Deadlines and Dead Grandmothers by Thomas Benton talks about how when exam time comes, professors hear from many students claiming to have dead grandmothers, wanting to delay taking the exam. The author is torn -- offering sympathy and an extension would be kind if the claim is true, and yet if it is not true, he wants to challenge them. He concludes by saying, "Maybe if I were a more open and approachable professor, with a longer history of generosity and kindness, fewer grandmothers would have to die." That is, if the students felt he would give them an extension without a dead grandmother, then they would not have to make up false excuses. I would like to see an educational system which encourages truth-telling. I know that if it were easily done, we would have it already, but still, that's what I'd like to see.
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