5 ms·

It makes me sad how little we value education beyond gainful employment.

B-Con 8y ago
The fine arts are great, after you've put food on the table and a roof over your head. Most people are much happier to have stable employment than esoteric knowledge. The economy and society are better for it too. School's primary purpose is to prepare people to be functioning members of society.
- Jtsummers 8y ago
  Define "functioning"? I can prepare almost anyone to be a functioning member of society so long as you don't want them to be capable of thought or creativity. They won't be a functioning member (or a well-functioning member) of a society ruled by a democratic system of government, though.
- holy_city 8y ago
  It's sad that people equate employment to being "functioning members of society." Your job is just one thing you do in society. Education is about teaching children how to think, communicate, and act as much as giving them specific tools for future careers. Never mind the plethora of studies that have found links between arts education and performance in other educational/vocational areas. It's hardly esoteric.
  - laretluval 8y ago
    Correlation or causation?
  - jesssse 8y ago
    I agree, never mind those studies. Art is masturbatory. Learn a trade.
  - dwild 8y ago
    > Education is about teaching children how to think, communicate, and act CS is incredible to teach how to think. Algorithms, using logic to solve problems, decomposing a problem, etc... Theses are all skills that make you think, that push you to UNDERSTANDS better. Personally I never seen my college classes as nothing else than learning to learn, because that's computer science. More often than not, the lack of information given by the teacher wasn't a proof of incompetence but a way to test our capacity to search and discover by our self. Sure I learned a bit in my french classes, sure I learned a bit in my history classes, but I never ever learned to think in any of theses classes except CS. I only learned to apply theses skills.
  - saghm 8y ago
    > Never mind the plethora of studies that have found links between arts education and performance in other educational/vocational areas. It seems at least possible that this might be due to schools that are better funded tend to offer more arts education, and the better funding would also presumably increase the quality of the education in other areas. Without seeing the studies, it seems hard to conclude that the arts education is the cause of the better performance in other areas.
- sushisushisushi 8y ago
  History, language, civics, etc. are not esoteric. They have been considered fundamental to basic education for centuries. They're also pretty necessary if you want to have a functioning democracy.
- nategri 8y ago
  > School's primary purpose is to prepare people to be functioning members of society. read: "productive economic units."
- Lasokki 8y ago
  At least here in Finland high school (or more precisely, upper secondary school) is regarded to provide students with "general knowledge" and a least exposure to various different fields of study. How are you supposed to know what you want to do in life, if you do not know what possibilities there are?
tengbretson 8y ago
Do you think you were taught to value education beyond gainful employment? If so, by whom? If not, where did it come from?
- nevertoolate 8y ago
  Yes. All my teachers and my family. Life is not slavery.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  I think parents and other family members are the ones who most often effectively instill a love of learning in kids, followed by middle and high school teachers, followed by college professors/lecturers. Information can be transmitted by almost anyone, but a deep love of something can only be instilled through a personal relationship of mutual respect and trust.
rayiner 8y ago
It makes me sad that people who think education is for something other than gainful employment are in charge of the government-mandated education people are forced to dedicate their childhoods to.
- tptacek 8y ago
  That's a thing that you say that you don't really believe, because there are obvious other goals for mandatory public education; for instance, instilling our civic values.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    My post was ambiguous. I think education is “for” gainful employment in that it’s the overriding purpose. Basic socialization is obviously another, and there is some element of instilling civic values. I strongly disagree, however, that compulsory schooling should be a vehicle for teaching kids a variety of things that school boards think is important for “well rounded” people. It becomes too much of a vehicle for shaping kids in the mold of the teachers and academics on the school board. Also, ever since we started making schools actively hostile to religion, I question how appropriate it is as a vehicle for teaching civic values.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      I think it's pretty important to hammer in basic US civil concepts like the meaning of the First Amendment, what roles we're expected to vote for, the separation of church and state, stuff like that. My understanding is that we have an unusually stable constitutional order (relative to other countries) and I assume public education is a big part of that. Basic numeracy also has value outside of making people more employable, and a reason that there's a nascent movement to replace Algebra 2 with something closer to a basic course on statistics and critical data thinking. I attended 12 years of Catholic school and while some of my Jesuit high school religion classes were interesting, they were not an especially good use of my time (although they did give me a nuanced understanding of Islam that became valuable for understanding the world later on, which I appreciate). I'd probably have been better off in the public high school my kids went to. And I went to an atypically disciplined and college-focused religious school.
grandridge 8y ago
art is a hobby

The fine arts are great, after you've put food on the table and a roof over your head. Most people are much happier to have stable employment than esoteric knowledge. The economy and society are better for it too. School's primary purpose is to prepare people to be functioning members of society.

Jtsummers 8y ago
Define "functioning"? I can prepare almost anyone to be a functioning member of society so long as you don't want them to be capable of thought or creativity. They won't be a functioning member (or a well-functioning member) of a society ruled by a democratic system of government, though.
holy_city 8y ago
It's sad that people equate employment to being "functioning members of society." Your job is just one thing you do in society. Education is about teaching children how to think, communicate, and act as much as giving them specific tools for future careers. Never mind the plethora of studies that have found links between arts education and performance in other educational/vocational areas. It's hardly esoteric.
- laretluval 8y ago
  Correlation or causation?
- jesssse 8y ago
  I agree, never mind those studies. Art is masturbatory. Learn a trade.
- dwild 8y ago
  > Education is about teaching children how to think, communicate, and act CS is incredible to teach how to think. Algorithms, using logic to solve problems, decomposing a problem, etc... Theses are all skills that make you think, that push you to UNDERSTANDS better. Personally I never seen my college classes as nothing else than learning to learn, because that's computer science. More often than not, the lack of information given by the teacher wasn't a proof of incompetence but a way to test our capacity to search and discover by our self. Sure I learned a bit in my french classes, sure I learned a bit in my history classes, but I never ever learned to think in any of theses classes except CS. I only learned to apply theses skills.
- saghm 8y ago
  > Never mind the plethora of studies that have found links between arts education and performance in other educational/vocational areas. It seems at least possible that this might be due to schools that are better funded tend to offer more arts education, and the better funding would also presumably increase the quality of the education in other areas. Without seeing the studies, it seems hard to conclude that the arts education is the cause of the better performance in other areas.
sushisushisushi 8y ago
History, language, civics, etc. are not esoteric. They have been considered fundamental to basic education for centuries. They're also pretty necessary if you want to have a functioning democracy.
nategri 8y ago
> School's primary purpose is to prepare people to be functioning members of society. read: "productive economic units."
Lasokki 8y ago
At least here in Finland high school (or more precisely, upper secondary school) is regarded to provide students with "general knowledge" and a least exposure to various different fields of study. How are you supposed to know what you want to do in life, if you do not know what possibilities there are?

tengbretson 8y ago

Do you think you were taught to value education beyond gainful employment? If so, by whom? If not, where did it come from?

nevertoolate 8y ago
Yes. All my teachers and my family. Life is not slavery.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
I think parents and other family members are the ones who most often effectively instill a love of learning in kids, followed by middle and high school teachers, followed by college professors/lecturers. Information can be transmitted by almost anyone, but a deep love of something can only be instilled through a personal relationship of mutual respect and trust.

rayiner 8y ago

It makes me sad that people who think education is for something other than gainful employment are in charge of the government-mandated education people are forced to dedicate their childhoods to.

tptacek 8y ago
That's a thing that you say that you don't really believe, because there are obvious other goals for mandatory public education; for instance, instilling our civic values.
- rayiner 8y ago
  My post was ambiguous. I think education is “for” gainful employment in that it’s the overriding purpose. Basic socialization is obviously another, and there is some element of instilling civic values. I strongly disagree, however, that compulsory schooling should be a vehicle for teaching kids a variety of things that school boards think is important for “well rounded” people. It becomes too much of a vehicle for shaping kids in the mold of the teachers and academics on the school board. Also, ever since we started making schools actively hostile to religion, I question how appropriate it is as a vehicle for teaching civic values.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    I think it's pretty important to hammer in basic US civil concepts like the meaning of the First Amendment, what roles we're expected to vote for, the separation of church and state, stuff like that. My understanding is that we have an unusually stable constitutional order (relative to other countries) and I assume public education is a big part of that. Basic numeracy also has value outside of making people more employable, and a reason that there's a nascent movement to replace Algebra 2 with something closer to a basic course on statistics and critical data thinking. I attended 12 years of Catholic school and while some of my Jesuit high school religion classes were interesting, they were not an especially good use of my time (although they did give me a nuanced understanding of Islam that became valuable for understanding the world later on, which I appreciate). I'd probably have been better off in the public high school my kids went to. And I went to an atypically disciplined and college-focused religious school.

grandridge 8y ago

art is a hobby