I think there are two related, but different issues in the US, again, related to education, not intelligence.

 

On the one hand, as a general proposition and in particular for certain demographics, the overall education is poorer - kids are being given passing grades and graduating that don't have basic competency in most subjects. I think that's pretty clearly the case. Whether there were more people who were functionally illiterate 50 years ago because they didn't go to school, as opposed to functionally illiterate people now who actually did attend and graduate from high school school now, I don't know; in other words, I don't know if overall the percentages are greater now or then, but I'm pretty sure the percentage who are illiterate who actually attended school is much higher now. Objectively, our schools are churning out, generally, "dumber" kids because they are passing kids who wouldn't have passed, say 40 years ago. I think that's been pretty well established, but that is less a criticism of the current generation than it is prior ones (and as much as anything, the parents).

 

The other issue is where the secondary education is otherwise excellent, there is a change in how kids are taught, and what subjects are emphasized, arguably not always for the better. Again, using my son and his school as an example - I'm sure the average college admission test score for his school far exceeds what it would have been at mine. He's taken classes as a high school freshman that I took in college, and aced the AP tests. He's not alone - a lot of high schools are pushing advanced subjects at an early age for those who can handle it. In that sense, I think the schools exceed previous generations, and I don't think it's even close, it's by a wide margin. But for me, how some subjects are taught, and a general de-emphasis of liberal arts generally, and history in particular, is distressing, in as much as how it impacts critical thinking, as well as having an informed electorate. I will concede this is a largely subjective opinion.

 

 

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I gave my son this test today.  He is ten so has two years left before high school since we live in Australia.  He got 70% which is encouraging.

I was just taking a look at education rankings on a few sources and on Wikipedia that use the Human Development Report from 2009 has ranked both New Zealand and Australia at number 1 as well as Finland, Denmark and Cuba. Canada was ranked 6th, USA ranked 21st, United Kingdom at 31st.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

 

 

I think the difference is the top countries on that list are countries that hold their schools to a much higher standard. NZ and Oz in particular have Student Codes of Conduct as well as strict uniform standards and grooming codes that you would never see in the USA, unless you live in a gated community and you send you kid to an expensive private school, but that isn't public education anymore as that is reserved for the privileged, whereas in NZ and Oz that is just what the schools are like.

Matthew, your link shows statistical data not measuring the quality of education. Comparing the mean years and the expected years of schooling gives an quantitative outlook on things like efficiency when it comes reaching the graduate status. It does not tell how good or bad the outcome is. Number counts.

 

If you'd ask how the quality of education is measured and who leads those charts, you'll find a lot of Asian countries at the top. The topic of setting up the right tests, with the correct cultural adjustments, therefore allowing for an objective view is heavily debated. Not because the tests are wrong or somebody is planning a conspiracy but because the factors are numerous to say the least.

 

If you summarise the topic of educational quality as just being driven by things like school uniforms, I'm afraid you are leaving out a lot of details. I would then ask how you explain Cuba to be on top of your list since you were only referring to NZ and Australia. Not saying that Cuba is less good but I do say that it's surely very different to the countries you've picked. By this, conclusions by analogy may not help to determine as to how an educational system can be improved.

 

I sense that we mostly agree that each country is facing a huge task on making sure that its youth stays not only competitively educated but also socially adjusted. Sometimes, those two goals contradict each other and I'd personally state that we are looking at the competitive bias these days.

 

 

New Zealand and Australia at number 1

 

That really surprises me as I had believed the UK would come out higher.  Somewhat similar findings are shown here...

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

I think we've got a real element here of "back in my day it was so much better!".

 

I know plenty of very well educated young people, and plenty of not so well educated older people. If anything kids nowadays should be smarter because they have ready, immediate access to so much more information.

 

 

 

I was just taking a look at education rankings on a few sources and on Wikipedia that use the Human Development Report from 2009 has ranked both New Zealand and Australia at number 1 as well as Finland, Denmark and Cuba. Canada was ranked 6th, USA ranked 21st, United Kingdom at 31st.

 

I'm very sceptical about this. I was trying to find out how this education index is calculated and it's very vague - it's based on the mean school years and expected school years, so it would appear the longer its children spend in education the higher the score. It doesn't appear to reflect the quality or standard of that education.

 

What really sets alarm bells ringing for me is the UK being at 31, whereas with the exception of Slovenia the former Yugoslav states are way down the list. My wife is Serbian and has explained to me how the education system there works - kids are pushed far harder and held to much higher standards than in the UK, where the trend appears to be dropping standards to achieve politically set targets. Funnily enough employers in the UK seem to value Eastern Europeans very highly because of the quality of education they have received compared to native Brits. I have a nephew aged 13 and a niece aged 11. When my wife looks at their school work she's genuinely shocked at how basic it is compared to what she was doing at their age.

There is certainly some truth to the idea of setting high standards to produce better students.  Massachusetts has some of the highest standards in the US, and testing to go along with them.  When students are rated vs. other states, Massachusetts has been coming out at the top for the last few years.  Unfortunately, it is likely that our standards will be "dumbed down" over the next few years to comply with the national "Common Core" requirements, which boost standards for some low-performing states, but actually lower the bar for those that chose to set it higher, and succeeded.

 

Yes, there is some "teaching to the test" effect at work here, but I am reminded of a conversation between my daughter and a group of her hometown friends, when they were in the middle of their college years.  They all remarked on how well prepared they were for college, when compared with students from other states.  The education they received in a high-standard environment served them well.

 

And then, we look at "No Child Left Behind."  This was an educational initiative from the Bush-II administration, again well-meaning, and again flawed in concept.  They drew a line on the good old educational bell curve, and called it "Proficient."  They then decreed that all students must be educated so that they are above that line, and schools that failed to do that would be penalized.  From looking at the data, they drew the line 1 standard deviation below the centroid of the curve.

 

Massachusetts, with their existing standards, quickly got 84-85% of their students over the "Proficient" line, and then stalled.  There was much hand-wringing among educators when many good schools were deemed "deficient" because, having achieved this level, they were no longer making "progress" towards the Decree.  What, they asked, were we doing wrong?

 

The answer, of course, is that most educators simply don't understand how statistics work.  The very definition of the gaussian curve and standard deviation says that 15-16% will always fall below the line they drew.  It was never possible to meet the demands they set up, and never will be.  When the skills of our leading educators are themselves deficient, how can we expect our students to improve.

 

Incidentally, when the Common Core standards were approved, the lone mathemetician on the committee refused to sign off.

The high rate of younger people getting into grave difficulty with mortgages, student or car loans and credit card debt, is a powerful indicator that basic math skills are not being acquired as part of common curriculum in the ed system.

One wonders if the inability to cope with basic mental arithmetic may be a root cause. IPads are no substitute

Is the TimesTable no longer being taught? (Or is that now, simply where the New York or London newspapers are found?)

 

Additionally, student views on what pay and salaries will be upon graduation, lead me to wonder  where they obtain their career information.

Probably Facebook I suppose.

january

 

 

 

Is that really what you had intended to write, Sascha?

 

As for the other post(er)s, I think we should be clear about whether we're talking about methods or 'useless' contents. There seems to be a mixup of some kind at times. Learning to learn indeed is important.

Ooops, that must be the mother of all Freudian gaffes!

 

I of course meant to say "I think most here agree that young people are NOT less intelligent - but some of us believe that education has taken a wrong turn in some countries."

 

If I have offended anyone through this carelessness, I apologize most sincerely!

 

Ah, the age old "kids these days" discussion. Everybody always likes to think their generation was superior to the subsequent ones because they worked harder, they didn't have it so easy, and so on and so forth. This will never, ever change.

 

Indeed, people evidently thought the same in antiquity:

 

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

 

Famously attributed to Socrates, about 400 BC ...

 

Regards,

Sascha

My wife just completed a 30 year career in education. She says there is too many "feel good" approaches going on.You cannot deal with minority issues which are cultural, and not based on intelligence. Too much fear of lawsuits. "No Child Left Behind" often means holding back advanced students in poor school districts. When you have open house events and only 2 sets of parents show up you begin to understand the problem. Not all parents are as involved as those in this thread. We live in a society where many parents expect the schools to raise their children. It takes teamwork between parents and the school district.

The ignorance of most people of all cultures is pretty underwhelming. It's not just Americans. I have spent the last 40 years of my life traveling the world and can tell you that there are people in Malaysia that do not know where New York is, Japanese that do not know where Perth is located, and countless others that do not know history beyond their very narrow horizons. Though this story relates to an American, it is a story that any country and citizen can repeat at some level.

 

My father was Navy and we were stationed in Japan. We returned to the US and were stationed in Southern Maryland. I remember the first day in school there. I was standing behind a very big kid who waiting in line with me in the cafeteria for his lunch, turned to me and asked; "you are the guy from Japan, right?". I said yes, we just arrived. He then responded with; "I have never met a Japanese before". I was floored and proceeded to explain, no, I am an American and I am not Japanese. He finally accepted that and we moved on.

 

The end of the story? We became good friends, and he ended up serving two tours in Vietnam. After two tours he came home to run his father's farm. Less than a year after his return, he was killed when his tractor overturned on him. Up to the time of his joining the Army, he had never traveled outside of St. Mary's county; the place of his birth and death.

Wow Tom you might be right, but a lot of Japanese know where Perth is. Very interesting you should say that. I'm sure there is always someone out there that doesn't know.

sascha, on 03 Oct 2013 - 7:52 PM, said:

...

 

Meaning: I did indeed mention buttons, but the whole reason for my amazement about this was my colleagues justification for placing the button at the top: He would not bother to read an article but share it on the basis of "cool factor"!

 

A core statement you entirely failed to pick up in both posts...

Well, it's a social media thing. You don't read it if it isn't immediately relevant to you, but if it's about a cool subject, you share it regardless, if just to signal that you remotely care about cool subjects.

I can't blame him.

 

Quote

Indeed, but then he should probably not hit the like button, eh?

Liking or sharing something not really relevant to you is basically the social media version of a hollow, faked "Well done. [i do not really care about what you just wrote, did or said; I'm just doing this to stay in your favour.]"

 

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Yes, but sometimes I wonder if it is worth the bother these days if people then go on and not read it ...

Oh hey, I wonder, too. But for me, it's about making freeware.

 

If it's a bit of a consolation: Download and document view numbers are a better indicator than verbal or written feedback.

And if 500 readers/downloaders stay silent, you can assume that they are content.

 

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Well, the point I was trying to get across is that you'd better have some core understanding based on knowledge and not have to look up everything when you are in a disassembled detector up to your waist ...

They've invented pocket-sized mobile devices for that. ;D

 

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If you had learned a lot of stock phrases by heart before visiting Spain, you would have gotten along famously.

It was a four day trip to Madrid. I've just assumed that a "No hablas espanol. Hablar inglese, por favor?" would get me somewhere but apparently all the Spaniards I've had to deal with are worse than the French in the language department.

 

(I've bought a dictionary for the trip regardless.)

 

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I agree, but she gets a lot of opposition in her faculty because of her practical methods, which are deemed "unscientific"/

Oh dear.

 

 

 

 

Captain_Barfbag, on 03 Oct 2013 - 8:50 PM, said:

Somewhere in your education, you should learn using those "antiquated" teaching methods. It's not so much what you're putting into your head, but how you're organizing it, and how well you can retrieve it. That's the education. It doesn't really matter if it's Shakespeare or history or football playoff results. At the same time, I am very happy to have Shakespeare and history and scores at my command, wherever I am, without a computer in front of me. They all help me to analyze and reply to the information I take in every day, "to the last syllable of recorded time."

Good for you, but for me, the stuff I was forced to learn by heart for one test is dug deep or entirely overwritten.

(Other stuff learned by heart and then applied numerous times is, however, readily available.)

As I have lived in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA I can point out a few differences in education…

 

Canada and USA are similar but Canada holds a higher standard because Canada has been able to maintain good funding for schools over the past 30 years where the USA has let the standards slide a little. At high school level, the semester system with a summer break is the most popular system to use, which is actually the best in my POV.

 

Australia and New Zealand are also similar being British Commonwealth and holding onto traditions. They don’t semester and use school terms. Don’t have long summer holidays and break school breaks up throughout the year. These schools are more disciplined, rule oriented, school uniforms, student codes of conduct etc….

 

In Canada and USA the school boards run the school. Parts of Australia have school boards and parts are independent run by trustees. In New Zealand the schools are independent and run by trustees.

 

Culturally is where you will find the difference. Students growing up in Australia and New Zealand are faced with a lot more rules and strict school environments that it takes away their independence and their ability to think for themselves. Even if you forget your blazer they will give you detentions...

 

In Canada and USA when you get to high school, you are basically on your own and it is up to you to figure it out. It is not the school boards job to raise your kids, tell them what to wear or what to do….etc. These schools have less rules, no uniforms and if you don’t want to be there they have no problem kicking you out, They are just going to focus on the students that want to be there.

 

North America produces better free thinkers and better leaders but it doesn't do as good a job at educating the masses. North America has much higher drop out rates but on the other side it will produce the better student as when they graduate they have learned to think for themselves. For the dropout there is always a second chance as they can go back anytime, even as an adult. So for some it just takes a little longer then others is all. If you do drop out of school in Australia or New Zealand their is very little option for a second chance.

 

In Australia and New Zealand the kids are raised with so many rules that when they turn 18, they are told they are on their own, so for the first time in their lives they don’t have to abide by uniforms or codes of conduct, also the year when they can legally drink. This is a recipe for disaster when you say to a kid you are finally free of rules and you can drink. In Australia and New Zealand the binge drinking at 18 years old is a very big problem because of the way they raise kids and all of a sudden set them free.

 

USA and Canada rank higher in ‘higher education’ so for those kids that got through the system will excel better at higher education and later in life. USA actually ranks highest in the world in higher education, so if you can survive high school, you will move onto some of the best schools in the world.

 

My view is if you start teaching a 13 year old adult rules and life lessons they will go further in life. USA and Canada are better at that. Australia and New Zealand prefer to hold your hand until you turn 18. The schools are far too rule oriented that the kids can’t think for themselves as much.

 

This is why the schools will rank higher in Australia and New Zealand but I don’t think that is necessarily better.

 

Steve Jobs would have been a disaster in the Australian/New Zealand way of doing things, They would have destroyed him early on by their rules….perfect example of what can come out of the American way.

Some public high schools require some form of a dress code, Chicago public schools required a white polo and black or navy blue pants (jeans were strictly prohibited) and for the winter months students were allowed to wear school sweaters. Being a huge t-shirt guy I usually got away with wearing the pe shirt most of the day. Again with budget cuts (which especially sting in neighborhoods where property values are low so tax flow is anemic) the academics have been stripped to the bone and with a huge emphasis on college prep that my school shoved down our throats it made those of us who are interested in military or the trades resent going to class.

 

I remember in anatomy class when the teacher asked those who wanted to go to college to stand up and only two people remained seated: myself and a ROTC cadet. He kinda tried to shame us for our choice to remain seated but the cadet remained silent and stared at him while I simply told him that I was born to have a wrench in my hand. Failed his class (refused to disect a cow eye and a baby pig) but I had more than enough credits to graduate so it didn't matter.

 

 

I simply told him that I was born to have a wrench in my hand.

 

This is an extremely important point, one which many "education professionals" refuse to grasp, or are actually unable to grasp.  Not everyone goes to college.  Our educational system in the "better' high schools tries to push too many students into inappropriate tracks, wasting both valuable learning time for the student and valuable resources for the community.  Fortunately, in our area students have access to high-quality vocational education.  Contrary to some popular misconceptions of these schools, they are highly selective and require academic achievement which is sometimes more rigorous than the standard public schools.

 

And, while a degree in Computer Science looks good on your wall, a master plumber or electrician's job isn't going to be exported to India.

 

 

know where Perth is

 

Which Perth are we talking about?  One is a place of historic beauty and culture, the other is in Western Australia.  But really, I do like Perth (in WA) although it is quite isolated.  I have lived in Perth (WA) and Edinburgh and can assure you that the weather is better in WA.  Great wine too!