3 ms·

The social structure of a typical American public school is prisoners and prison guards. Why would any of the prisoners have respect for the prison guards? Most

The social structure of a typical American public school is prisoners and prison guards. Why would any of the prisoners have respect for the prison guards? Most of the prisoners aspire to be something higher paid and less degrading than a prison guard. They aren't role models, they are just captors.

ge96 1y ago
I suppose I was one of the lucky ones where my science teacher supported me in my interests/made learning fun
bitwize 1y ago
Is the fundamental model of a school from one of the post-historical paradises of education, like Japan, Singapore, or Finland much different? If anything, schools from those countries are stricter and instill more discipline than do schools in the USA. I know people who work in education; if they fail to be more than a prison guard, it's not through lack of trying. They're just hamstrung by administration every time they try to actually teach. Perhaps a better analogy would be lab techs and lab rats. The students are the rats. They have a battery of experiments performed on them by lab techs (teachers) overseen by scientists (administration) who also determine which experiments to run. The problem is, what's being practiced is not really a science but a form of alchemy: how to determine a repeatable process to refine the lead of incoming children into the gold of model citizens who make all the right decisions according to the latest knowledge of what "right" is? (This was called "Outcome Based Education" in the 90s and "Social Emotional Learning" today.) The missing bit is that learning is an active process which requires involvement of the child. But anyway, woe betide the lab tech who arrogates to perform the experiment in a manner not prescribed by their betters with Ph.D.s (say, in a way that's been shown to get results)!

3 ms·

The social structure of a typical American public school is prisoners and prison guards. Why would any of the prisoners have respect for the prison guards? Most

by alphazard 1y ago

ge96 1y ago
I suppose I was one of the lucky ones where my science teacher supported me in my interests/made learning fun
bitwize 1y ago
Is the fundamental model of a school from one of the post-historical paradises of education, like Japan, Singapore, or Finland much different? If anything, schools from those countries are stricter and instill more discipline than do schools in the USA. I know people who work in education; if they fail to be more than a prison guard, it's not through lack of trying. They're just hamstrung by administration every time they try to actually teach. Perhaps a better analogy would be lab techs and lab rats. The students are the rats. They have a battery of experiments performed on them by lab techs (teachers) overseen by scientists (administration) who also determine which experiments to run. The problem is, what's being practiced is not really a science but a form of alchemy: how to determine a repeatable process to refine the lead of incoming children into the gold of model citizens who make all the right decisions according to the latest knowledge of what "right" is? (This was called "Outcome Based Education" in the 90s and "Social Emotional Learning" today.) The missing bit is that learning is an active process which requires involvement of the child. But anyway, woe betide the lab tech who arrogates to perform the experiment in a manner not prescribed by their betters with Ph.D.s (say, in a way that's been shown to get results)!