4 ms·

I can't compare recent advances in educational systems, but I do have pretty good knowledge of at least what used to happen in high schools in the US and of sc

by jwr 13y ago

I can't compare recent advances in educational systems, but I do have pretty good knowledge of at least what used to happen in high schools in the US and of schools and a technical university in France. The conclusions I'd draw (and mind you, this is knowledge from ~15-20 years ago, and it is my knowledge and my opinions): * Polish high school students indeed know more and are better at problem solving than most US high school students, * that said, there are high schools (public!) in the US that offer university-level courses and are excellent, * and university-level education seems to be much better in the US, * the US approach of "if the answer has one too many significant digit, it is wrong and you get zero points" is virtually unknown in Poland and comes as a shock to Polish students, who are often taught that "it is the approach that counts". I find the US approach much more realistic: it doesn't matter how you "approached" the design of a bridge, if the bridge collapsed. * French schools are quite similar to Polish ones, but: * mathematics taught at French technical universities (the best ones) is WAY WAY WAY above what a Polish high-school graduate would expect, My main point is that it is very difficult to compare educational systems and draw meaningful conclusions. Dealing with society-wide aggregates doesn't tell you much about the outliers: best schools, best students, specific curriculums, or specific sciences. My secondary point is that based on my experience I wouldn't say the Polish system is better than any other. And I don't see any sweeping changes that would improve the situation in recent years (the reshuffling of schools and age groups doesn't do much in my opinion).

Jtsummers 13y ago
the US approach of "if the answer has one too many significant digit, it is wrong and you get zero points" is virtually unknown in Poland and comes as a shock to Polish students, who are often taught that "it is the approach that counts". I find the US approach much more realistic: it doesn't matter how you "approached" the design of a bridge, if the bridge collapsed. My problem with this all-or-nothing approach to grading, you aren't designing a bridge in a 2 hour exam with a graphing calculator and pencil and 3 sheets of scratch paper. These aren't representative of real world situations, engineering rarely operates under that sort of time crunch. Apollo 13 is an exception, but by that point it isn't novices but experts doing the work, experts who'd studied the physics and math for years, if not decades. This approach is used to weed out students from programs that admit too many to their freshman classes. They should reduce their class size if this is so important. Many upper-level undergraduate courses, and a lot of graduate courses, don't even expect the sort of time-crunched, mental feats expected from freshman level calculus and physics students.
polskibus 13y ago
My experience comes from 7-3 yrs ago. Now I work in Poland and I can see that the bar has been lowered in terms of amount and scope of uni subjects (compared to 10-5 yes ago). My point wasn't that our system is superb-it is not. My point was that it is not that bad in relation to others. I strongly believe in keeping the bar (requirements for passing) very high, the system is doing the opposite while trying to mimick the West.
Perseids 13y ago
> Polish high school students indeed know more and are better at problem solving than most US high school students, * that said, there are high schools (public!) in the US that offer university-level courses and are excellent, * and university-level education seems to be much better in the US I'm curious how you compare students in different educational systems. Like what is "high school" and "university" in Poland. I ask, because every time I read something about the American education system I have quite some trouble assessing the statements because of the foreign categorizations. For example "school" in Germany comprises the first 12 or 13 years of education, with the first change of school happening after 4 or 6 years in primary school (with school starting at the age of 6). The following 13th till 18th year of education is held at a "university" where you earn a Bachelor and a Master degree. A PHD would be 3 to 5 further years in university. I've pieced together that the American Bachelor seems to be more broad than the German one. My Bachelor degree was in Mathematics and it did not contain some mandatory stuff in humanities for example. Yet it seems we learned that stuff in the first 12 (/13) years already and thus the German Bachelor starts later than the American one? But that would also mean that German students would spend more time overall in education (the current average (of people with higher education) might be about 18 years) and I also find that implausible. Basically I'm asking: Does someone know of a good comparative introduction to the American education system?
catwell 13y ago
I am French, and I have studied at an Engineering School in France (probably what you call "technical university") and at a British university. I agree that our higher education is doing something right. The problem is what comes before that. In France, to have an engineering degree (equivalent of a MSc) from a top school, you go through: - High school, where the quality of education and the technical level is very low IMO. - CPGE. This is a French specificity, two years dedicated to preparing competitive exams. Basically, you only study maths and physics in the abstract there. This is the reason why our math level is so high compared to other countries. But the math we study is not the most useful: lots, lots of analysis, a decent amount of algebra, almost no statistics and nothing discovered since the end of the XIXth century (exit Turing, exit Gödel...). - Only after that do you study at a "Grande École" for three years... But you have to catch up things like project management and so on so real technical education is limited. In the end, we produce generalists that are often good at everything but very good at nothing. Those of use who want to understand a domain in depth often go study abroad. This is what I did, I went to the UK to study distributed computing. I had students from all over the world in my class and I was impressed by those from Poland. I don't know how you do it, they may not have not know the most on arrival but they were certainly learning the fastest (along with student from Czech Republic).

by jwr 13y ago

Jtsummers 13y ago

the US approach of "if the answer has one too many significant digit, it is wrong and you get zero points" is virtually unknown in Poland and comes as a shock to Polish students, who are often taught that "it is the approach that counts". I find the US approach much more realistic: it doesn't matter how you "approached" the design of a bridge, if the bridge collapsed. My problem with this all-or-nothing approach to grading, you aren't designing a bridge in a 2 hour exam with a graphing calculator and pencil and 3 sheets of scratch paper. These aren't representative of real world situations, engineering rarely operates under that sort of time crunch. Apollo 13 is an exception, but by that point it isn't novices but experts doing the work, experts who'd studied the physics and math for years, if not decades. This approach is used to weed out students from programs that admit too many to their freshman classes. They should reduce their class size if this is so important. Many upper-level undergraduate courses, and a lot of graduate courses, don't even expect the sort of time-crunched, mental feats expected from freshman level calculus and physics students.

polskibus 13y ago

My experience comes from 7-3 yrs ago. Now I work in Poland and I can see that the bar has been lowered in terms of amount and scope of uni subjects (compared to 10-5 yes ago). My point wasn't that our system is superb-it is not. My point was that it is not that bad in relation to others. I strongly believe in keeping the bar (requirements for passing) very high, the system is doing the opposite while trying to mimick the West.

Perseids 13y ago

> Polish high school students indeed know more and are better at problem solving than most US high school students, * that said, there are high schools (public!) in the US that offer university-level courses and are excellent, * and university-level education seems to be much better in the US I'm curious how you compare students in different educational systems. Like what is "high school" and "university" in Poland. I ask, because every time I read something about the American education system I have quite some trouble assessing the statements because of the foreign categorizations. For example "school" in Germany comprises the first 12 or 13 years of education, with the first change of school happening after 4 or 6 years in primary school (with school starting at the age of 6). The following 13th till 18th year of education is held at a "university" where you earn a Bachelor and a Master degree. A PHD would be 3 to 5 further years in university. I've pieced together that the American Bachelor seems to be more broad than the German one. My Bachelor degree was in Mathematics and it did not contain some mandatory stuff in humanities for example. Yet it seems we learned that stuff in the first 12 (/13) years already and thus the German Bachelor starts later than the American one? But that would also mean that German students would spend more time overall in education (the current average (of people with higher education) might be about 18 years) and I also find that implausible. Basically I'm asking: Does someone know of a good comparative introduction to the American education system?

catwell 13y ago

I am French, and I have studied at an Engineering School in France (probably what you call "technical university") and at a British university. I agree that our higher education is doing something right. The problem is what comes before that. In France, to have an engineering degree (equivalent of a MSc) from a top school, you go through: - High school, where the quality of education and the technical level is very low IMO. - CPGE. This is a French specificity, two years dedicated to preparing competitive exams. Basically, you only study maths and physics in the abstract there. This is the reason why our math level is so high compared to other countries. But the math we study is not the most useful: lots, lots of analysis, a decent amount of algebra, almost no statistics and nothing discovered since the end of the XIXth century (exit Turing, exit Gödel...). - Only after that do you study at a "Grande École" for three years... But you have to catch up things like project management and so on so real technical education is limited. In the end, we produce generalists that are often good at everything but very good at nothing. Those of use who want to understand a domain in depth often go study abroad. This is what I did, I went to the UK to study distributed computing. I had students from all over the world in my class and I was impressed by those from Poland. I don't know how you do it, they may not have not know the most on arrival but they were certainly learning the fastest (along with student from Czech Republic).