3 ms·

Curious to hear why you feel that education has been broken throughout your life. I totally believe you, it's your own experience after all! Just feel that I wa

Curious to hear why you feel that education has been broken throughout your life. I totally believe you, it's your own experience after all! Just feel that I was very lucky and had a good education at several great institutions with good mentors, so curious to hear what could have gone wrong.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
I'm not the GP, but treating students as tabula rasa is a big part of the problem. Another is treating students as the average of their cohort. > with good mentors Most people don't get mentors until the latter part of undergraduate, at best. They don't even get people asking pertinent questions as to what they (the students) want to do, or are interested in, and what problems or issues they are having. Asking these questions is not an easy process, as the asker doesn't know about the student in order to ask pertinent questions, and the student often lacks the life knowledge to give the most pertinent answers. But even a bad processes would be preferable to nothing. I know now what guidance I should have sought. But other students aren't me. It's a sad fact that it's pretty much only those who successfully navigated the system who are in a position to give informed advice and mentorship to students today. Our teachers are the successes. Those who failed are, at best, object lessons who we never hear from. Some pedagogues try to research successes versus failures to generate lessons on how to instruct and credential better. And I wish them well.
alpaca128 3y ago
I personally had a miserable experience too. I can focus for about 10-20 minutes in a typical class setting before my brain drifts off, which made most of education feel like a waste of time. That kind of daydreaming also pisses off certain teachers to a point they make it their goal to make one's life hell. Part of the reason I finished school at all is that making a student fail causes more paperwork than most teachers care to do, which makes it quite easy to get barely passing grades. Of course this backfires in various ways like constantly declining standards for grades. Teachers in their last years before retirement are either so unmotivated they might as well stay at home (one of my teachers literally arrived 30 minutes late every time, another one simply didn't teach, ever, and was just present), others are just miserable people and decide none of their students ever deserves a better grade than a C. Very motivating. Of course it's not a great system for teachers either and a lot of them work really hard.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

I'm not the GP, but treating students as tabula rasa is a big part of the problem. Another is treating students as the average of their cohort. > with good mentors Most people don't get mentors until the latter part of undergraduate, at best. They don't even get people asking pertinent questions as to what they (the students) want to do, or are interested in, and what problems or issues they are having. Asking these questions is not an easy process, as the asker doesn't know about the student in order to ask pertinent questions, and the student often lacks the life knowledge to give the most pertinent answers. But even a bad processes would be preferable to nothing. I know now what guidance I should have sought. But other students aren't me. It's a sad fact that it's pretty much only those who successfully navigated the system who are in a position to give informed advice and mentorship to students today. Our teachers are the successes. Those who failed are, at best, object lessons who we never hear from. Some pedagogues try to research successes versus failures to generate lessons on how to instruct and credential better. And I wish them well.

alpaca128 3y ago

I personally had a miserable experience too. I can focus for about 10-20 minutes in a typical class setting before my brain drifts off, which made most of education feel like a waste of time. That kind of daydreaming also pisses off certain teachers to a point they make it their goal to make one's life hell. Part of the reason I finished school at all is that making a student fail causes more paperwork than most teachers care to do, which makes it quite easy to get barely passing grades. Of course this backfires in various ways like constantly declining standards for grades. Teachers in their last years before retirement are either so unmotivated they might as well stay at home (one of my teachers literally arrived 30 minutes late every time, another one simply didn't teach, ever, and was just present), others are just miserable people and decide none of their students ever deserves a better grade than a C. Very motivating. Of course it's not a great system for teachers either and a lot of them work really hard.