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> Could you be specific? In particular, how do I measure whether a citizen is prepared for a productive life or not? I like that you ignored the latter half.

> Could you be specific? In particular, how do I measure whether a citizen is prepared for a productive life or not? I like that you ignored the latter half. You don't measure the citizen. You measure the rate at which the country is liberalizing. That is, the rate at which its core philosophical attitude is becoming more individualist, egalitarian, meliorist, and universalist. The purpose of public education is to shift us from the medieval era into the modern era. (And to be clear, being conservative is the opposite of being radical; it does not contradict being liberal. Many things that belong on the political Right are legitimately liberal but not Left.) How many people are concerned with individual rights? How many people demonstrate equal moral worth and status to all individuals? How many people have a positive outlook on the future? How many people recognize universal qualities in all human beings? The rate at which these indicators are moving is positive, but that rate should be increasing in a country with a strong educational system; you'd ask the questions differently in a different era.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
So you are proposing that the purpose of education is indoctrination into value system X, and propose that a successful system will indoctrinate more people? Your goal is now vaguely stated. But how do I actually count the # of people concerned with individual rights/positive outlook/etc?
- saraid216 14y ago
  > So you are proposing that the purpose of education is indoctrination into value system X, and propose that a successful system will indoctrinate more people? What did you think it was? > Your goal is now vaguely stated. But how do I actually count the # of people concerned with individual rights/positive outlook/etc? Uh, polling?
  - ntumlin 14y ago
    Hopefully the goal isn't to indoctrinate people but to prepare them to go to college, get a job, make money, spend money, etc.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      > go to college, get a job, make money, spend money Can you tell me why these are good things to prepare people for?
      - ntumlin 14y ago
        College leads to job leads to money. Money is generally a pretty handy thing to have.
        saraid216 14y ago
        And some people disagree with the notion of money. Why is your value system better to indoctrinate the young with over theirs? I don't disagree with you, mind. It's just that accusations of indoctrination are responded to in kind.
        smsm42 14y ago
        I think living a good life and doing something that benefits other people (aka earning money) is a good idea. If somebody disagrees, he can of course take his kids and go live under the bridge and open his school there. Let's see where we'd have more applicants - in a school that teaches kids how to be successful or in a school under a bridge that teaches them money is nothing, you can subsist on garbage and live in cardboard boxes forever. I think you can predict the result - and explaining this result would also explain which system is better, in opinion of your peers.
        saraid216 14y ago
        That's still indoctrination. I'm not sure why that's hard to understand. You can make all the assertions you like; you're still indoctrinating a particular value system.
        smsm42 14y ago
        OK, it's indoctrination. Teaching kids to use toilet, wipe their butts, wash their hands and not put a fork into an electrical outlet is an indoctrination too. So what?
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Polling is another form of standardized testing (unless you propose asking different questions of each participant). It seems you don't object to standardized testing at all, but merely to the goals of the current school system (conveying knowledge/skills rather than indoctrination).
    - saraid216 14y ago
      > Polling is another form of standardized testing (unless you propose asking different questions of each participant). No, it's not. Polling is an analysis of a large population through sampling. Standardized testing, in the context we're talking about, is an evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. > It seems you don't object to standardized testing at all, but merely to the goals of the current school system Here's the funny part. The goals are expressed through the school system. The kind of reform I'd like to see (read: infeasible in the short-term, at least) involve societal upheaval. I can talk about it, as long as you recognize that I've been working for the past few months on trying to figure out a good way of capturing my thoughts and have yet to succeed to my satisfaction. I can't speak for wpietri, but my opposition to standardized testing is multifarious. For instance, I've experienced its detrimental effects on education firsthand. (In high school, there were a number of interesting topics that we had no time to cover because it was more important to teach to the test. My desire for education reform was born right there.) For the same reason, I dislike grading and GPAs and such. I don't consider this opposition very important, though, because I think we're teaching the wrong things to begin with. > conveying knowledge/skills The decision of which pieces of knowledge and which skills to focus on is a political decision and a form of indoctrination. Otherwise, you're not actually conveying anything so much as facilitating the ability to discover/develop knowledge/skills.
      - yummyfajitas 14y ago
        ...evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. I'm confused - what group of people should we be measuring, if not the students exiting the education system? ...there were a number of interesting topics that we had no time to cover because it was more important to teach to the test. Again, I stand by my claim that your problem is not with standardized tests, but with the goals of the school system. You wanted schools to cover topic B, but the political system decided they must cover A. The only role the tests played in this story is that they are an effective mechanism for making sure teachers actually do their job.
- Tsagadai 14y ago
  Yes, the purpose of all education is indoctrination to a set of ideas. Home schooling is also an exercise in indoctrination to a set of ideas. Critical thinking is an idea, egalitarianism is an idea, individuality is an idea, problem solving is an idea. Education is a way of ensuring a more advanced and productive society through imparting certain knowledge and ideas to its children. The best metric for measuring the performance of an education system is rates of criminality. If a society has high crime rates then its education system is failing to produce productive members.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Crime rate is a decent metric, but I feel it's too indirect to be useful. If they do change, there are a lot of possibilities that could explain it: police aren't enforcing silly laws, that laws are reasonably legislated, police have been corrupted by bribery, and so on.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Education can be divorced from indoctrination. An educated person can display particular skills and knowledge, they don't need to believe that knowledge. (See, e.g., Einstein displaying knowledge of quantum mechanics without actually believing it, or assorted creationists who actually understand evolution.) I think your claim that criminality is the best measure of knowledge is interesting. Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state. (For the cost of the current education system we could increase the number of cops/courts/prisons by a factor of 6.)
    - saraid216 14y ago
      > Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state. Actually, an easier way to reduce the crime rate to zero is to repeal all categories of crime. Make it legal to steal and murder. Then all you have are existential crimes: "How could you let this happen!?" types: where crime is a metaphor rather than a fact. > (For the cost of the current education system we could increase the number of cops/courts/prisons by a factor of 6.) Citation needed.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

So you are proposing that the purpose of education is indoctrination into value system X, and propose that a successful system will indoctrinate more people? Your goal is now vaguely stated. But how do I actually count the # of people concerned with individual rights/positive outlook/etc?

saraid216 14y ago
> So you are proposing that the purpose of education is indoctrination into value system X, and propose that a successful system will indoctrinate more people? What did you think it was? > Your goal is now vaguely stated. But how do I actually count the # of people concerned with individual rights/positive outlook/etc? Uh, polling?
- ntumlin 14y ago
  Hopefully the goal isn't to indoctrinate people but to prepare them to go to college, get a job, make money, spend money, etc.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    > go to college, get a job, make money, spend money Can you tell me why these are good things to prepare people for?
    - ntumlin 14y ago
      College leads to job leads to money. Money is generally a pretty handy thing to have.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        And some people disagree with the notion of money. Why is your value system better to indoctrinate the young with over theirs? I don't disagree with you, mind. It's just that accusations of indoctrination are responded to in kind.
        smsm42 14y ago
        I think living a good life and doing something that benefits other people (aka earning money) is a good idea. If somebody disagrees, he can of course take his kids and go live under the bridge and open his school there. Let's see where we'd have more applicants - in a school that teaches kids how to be successful or in a school under a bridge that teaches them money is nothing, you can subsist on garbage and live in cardboard boxes forever. I think you can predict the result - and explaining this result would also explain which system is better, in opinion of your peers.
        saraid216 14y ago
        That's still indoctrination. I'm not sure why that's hard to understand. You can make all the assertions you like; you're still indoctrinating a particular value system.
        smsm42 14y ago
        OK, it's indoctrination. Teaching kids to use toilet, wipe their butts, wash their hands and not put a fork into an electrical outlet is an indoctrination too. So what?
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Polling is another form of standardized testing (unless you propose asking different questions of each participant). It seems you don't object to standardized testing at all, but merely to the goals of the current school system (conveying knowledge/skills rather than indoctrination).
  - saraid216 14y ago
    > Polling is another form of standardized testing (unless you propose asking different questions of each participant). No, it's not. Polling is an analysis of a large population through sampling. Standardized testing, in the context we're talking about, is an evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. > It seems you don't object to standardized testing at all, but merely to the goals of the current school system Here's the funny part. The goals are expressed through the school system. The kind of reform I'd like to see (read: infeasible in the short-term, at least) involve societal upheaval. I can talk about it, as long as you recognize that I've been working for the past few months on trying to figure out a good way of capturing my thoughts and have yet to succeed to my satisfaction. I can't speak for wpietri, but my opposition to standardized testing is multifarious. For instance, I've experienced its detrimental effects on education firsthand. (In high school, there were a number of interesting topics that we had no time to cover because it was more important to teach to the test. My desire for education reform was born right there.) For the same reason, I dislike grading and GPAs and such. I don't consider this opposition very important, though, because I think we're teaching the wrong things to begin with. > conveying knowledge/skills The decision of which pieces of knowledge and which skills to focus on is a political decision and a form of indoctrination. Otherwise, you're not actually conveying anything so much as facilitating the ability to discover/develop knowledge/skills.
    - yummyfajitas 14y ago
      ...evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. I'm confused - what group of people should we be measuring, if not the students exiting the education system? ...there were a number of interesting topics that we had no time to cover because it was more important to teach to the test. Again, I stand by my claim that your problem is not with standardized tests, but with the goals of the school system. You wanted schools to cover topic B, but the political system decided they must cover A. The only role the tests played in this story is that they are an effective mechanism for making sure teachers actually do their job.
Tsagadai 14y ago
Yes, the purpose of all education is indoctrination to a set of ideas. Home schooling is also an exercise in indoctrination to a set of ideas. Critical thinking is an idea, egalitarianism is an idea, individuality is an idea, problem solving is an idea. Education is a way of ensuring a more advanced and productive society through imparting certain knowledge and ideas to its children. The best metric for measuring the performance of an education system is rates of criminality. If a society has high crime rates then its education system is failing to produce productive members.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Crime rate is a decent metric, but I feel it's too indirect to be useful. If they do change, there are a lot of possibilities that could explain it: police aren't enforcing silly laws, that laws are reasonably legislated, police have been corrupted by bribery, and so on.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Education can be divorced from indoctrination. An educated person can display particular skills and knowledge, they don't need to believe that knowledge. (See, e.g., Einstein displaying knowledge of quantum mechanics without actually believing it, or assorted creationists who actually understand evolution.) I think your claim that criminality is the best measure of knowledge is interesting. Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state. (For the cost of the current education system we could increase the number of cops/courts/prisons by a factor of 6.)
  - saraid216 14y ago
    > Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state. Actually, an easier way to reduce the crime rate to zero is to repeal all categories of crime. Make it legal to steal and murder. Then all you have are existential crimes: "How could you let this happen!?" types: where crime is a metaphor rather than a fact. > (For the cost of the current education system we could increase the number of cops/courts/prisons by a factor of 6.) Citation needed.