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> The older are in school learning more challenging things. Most teens would be unable to take the responsibility Do you see the contradiction in your own stat

by ef4 11y ago

> The older are in school learning more challenging things. Most teens would be unable to take the responsibility Do you see the contradiction in your own statement? Teaching younger children is both too easy and too hard? Responsibility is the whole point. Yes, it's supposed to be a non-trivial challenge. That is part of why it's worth doing. > education is more advanced than it was, say, 100 years ago. Education is certainly more democratized now, but it's hard to identify any advances. Picking up a student textbook from 1900 is very eye opening. Students today don't learn any math invented later than the 18th century. Though that is hardly the worst thing I can say about school math. They study history in much the same way that students studied history two hundred years ago -- but without actually learning classical languages to read the original works. They study literature and composition the same way it has been done for many generations. The canon that educated people are supposed to have read has shifted somewhat, but it is just different, not more complex. The contents of their science books have updated somewhat, but the method sadly has not. Memorization of facts is still the norm -- the dried up husks of actual science. The only true advance I see is the elimination of corporal punishment.

QSIITurbo 11y ago
There's no contradiction, you are misunderstanding my statement. Older children need to go to school to learn stuff like mathematics, history, sciences, languages, and so on. Hanging around and taking care of younger kids all day would be a hindrance to their development. It's too much to assume that an average child can productively solve problems that are related to raising children with various family backgrounds. How to deal with shy or angry children, conflicts with the family members and so on. While I don't know how it's done everywhere in the world, contrast that to kindergarten teachers that have academic education with focus on teaching (including methods, subjects, psychology, and so on). If you claim that education hasn't advanced in 100 years tremendously, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. For instance, think about the education of children with mental or learning disabilities. It has advanced a lot in my lifetime, too.
- 1stop 11y ago
  It's advanced a lot...? And your example is to cite how a tiny tiny minority is now taught differently... Even though the broad structure of a school, class, teacher and curriculum and learning outcomes hasn't changed significantly since Plato was at school, in fact the ancient Greeks model was pretty effective if extremely exclusive.
  - QSIITurbo 11y ago
    Children with learning and behavioral disorders are a minority, yes, but they cause the most damage in a group, hindering the natural progression of others so the teacher has to know how to deal with these children. Now, that was just one that I gave you, but even ordinary children often have behavioral issues that stem from their upbringing at home and the teacher has to be able to address that. Our high school biology ends with relatively detailed information about DNA replication and sequencing using PCR that combines chemistry and physics. Physics includes nuclear physics and electrical engineering. Mathematics contains differential equations and statistics. Chemistry has topics going in to details of organic chemistry. Was Plato talking about those too? If you feel that there's some problem in education that you can solve better, feel free to get a degree and write a thesis about that.
    - redahs 11y ago
      The mistake you are making is assuming that synchronous group activities are a necessary and important part of teaching. There will always be deviations from the mean, regardless of whether or not they are pathologized as behavioral disorders, which will slow down such attempts at synchronous learning. This is why sense classical times the ultimate model for education has been that of the individual conversation, dialogue, between student and tutor. We aren't using alternative methods outside of tutorship for education because we have discovered better methodologies, we are doing so because of economics and cost. Expert tutors were formerly extremely scarce and retained by the nobility. We employ group lectures in packed classrooms not because they are a necessary or efficient way to learn, but because educated teachers used to be extremely scarce, and it gave everybody a chance to hear.

by ef4 11y ago

QSIITurbo 11y ago

There's no contradiction, you are misunderstanding my statement. Older children need to go to school to learn stuff like mathematics, history, sciences, languages, and so on. Hanging around and taking care of younger kids all day would be a hindrance to their development. It's too much to assume that an average child can productively solve problems that are related to raising children with various family backgrounds. How to deal with shy or angry children, conflicts with the family members and so on. While I don't know how it's done everywhere in the world, contrast that to kindergarten teachers that have academic education with focus on teaching (including methods, subjects, psychology, and so on). If you claim that education hasn't advanced in 100 years tremendously, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. For instance, think about the education of children with mental or learning disabilities. It has advanced a lot in my lifetime, too.

1stop 11y ago
It's advanced a lot...? And your example is to cite how a tiny tiny minority is now taught differently... Even though the broad structure of a school, class, teacher and curriculum and learning outcomes hasn't changed significantly since Plato was at school, in fact the ancient Greeks model was pretty effective if extremely exclusive.
- QSIITurbo 11y ago
  Children with learning and behavioral disorders are a minority, yes, but they cause the most damage in a group, hindering the natural progression of others so the teacher has to know how to deal with these children. Now, that was just one that I gave you, but even ordinary children often have behavioral issues that stem from their upbringing at home and the teacher has to be able to address that. Our high school biology ends with relatively detailed information about DNA replication and sequencing using PCR that combines chemistry and physics. Physics includes nuclear physics and electrical engineering. Mathematics contains differential equations and statistics. Chemistry has topics going in to details of organic chemistry. Was Plato talking about those too? If you feel that there's some problem in education that you can solve better, feel free to get a degree and write a thesis about that.
  - redahs 11y ago
    The mistake you are making is assuming that synchronous group activities are a necessary and important part of teaching. There will always be deviations from the mean, regardless of whether or not they are pathologized as behavioral disorders, which will slow down such attempts at synchronous learning. This is why sense classical times the ultimate model for education has been that of the individual conversation, dialogue, between student and tutor. We aren't using alternative methods outside of tutorship for education because we have discovered better methodologies, we are doing so because of economics and cost. Expert tutors were formerly extremely scarce and retained by the nobility. We employ group lectures in packed classrooms not because they are a necessary or efficient way to learn, but because educated teachers used to be extremely scarce, and it gave everybody a chance to hear.