Minnesota
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Here's a big thrash post. Skip to the bottom if you want the bottom line
Trafik Jamz;264501 wrote:
Just like not everyone is cut out for a jobWell, there are people who truly aren't cut out for a job, due to some non-self-inflicted disability that prevents them from being effective for any purpose.
and therefore shouldn't be expected to have one in order to live in this country (yes...sarcasm).
I wouldn't kick jobless people out of the US. They're free to be here. But unless they're the people I mentioned above, who truly must be cared for by society, I'm not in favor of making it easy for the able bodied to remain unproductive at the expense of unwilling sponsors.
Not everyone is cut out for the same kind of job, but luckily, there are lots of different kinds of jobs out there.
But the problem with government-run education is that there is really only one kind of school, and that is by design. People are different, and not only do public schools not serve that reality well, they are designed in broad strokes to trample and crush those differences.
Seriously though, you went through public school (I think you said you did anyway) as did I as did 99% of the people on this board. If this board is any indication of how well the schools worked for making kids more liberal, I'd say that they failed horribly at that.
Luckily, my education greatly eclipsed the mandatory service I did in public school.
I was doing pay-extra-for-nerdy-kids summer programs from the time I was about 6 years old. Were you writing software on the Apple 2 and C64 when you were in elementary school? Were you programming a robotic milling machine in middle school? Did your dad help you finish calculus all the way through multi-variable before you left highschool, so that you started college day 1 with a math minor and a full ride?
We moved every few years to make sure i was in the "Best" school district, generally, and my dad was pretty instrumental at making sure that I was learning stuff when I wasn't in jail/school.
However, and please don't take this the wrong way, I've never met one single kid who was home schooled that turned out to be a productive member of society....I hope you prove me wrong, but the majority seem to walk away from home schooling without the ability to function in the real world. Without the ability to take criticism/teasing/etc.. and roll with the punches. They tend not to do well in comparison with their peers either on careers. This is why I have referred to home schooling as a form of child abuse....again, not singling you out, you seem intelligent enough to school your kids at home, most parents ultimately are not.
The world is larger than your experiences. The more homeschooled kids I meet, the more my resolve is strenghtened. You also do what may others do: you set a false bar. Many publicly schooled children are not productive members of society, or don't relate well to people. Why should homeschooled kids be held to a standard that public school has never met? Why is that even the appropriate standard? If I meet a kid that cannot articulate what is going on in "American Idol", that's a virtue in my book. Relating as peers to the malevolent, the narrow, the shallow.. this is not something I'd choose to optimize my life or my education around. Would you?
This is an intrinsic failing of the public school system: that we need to optimize the course of eduction, the level of societal interaction, and the majority of the content and time, around the average person. THere are no average people. Some people cannot keep up with "Average", and some people cannot possibly have their attention held by "average". Everyone loses out, to varying degrees.
I have nothing against lifetime sandwhich artists -- they're doing *something *. But I want a different experience for myself, and hopefully for my children.
Finally, you don't own anyone's children, and neither does the state [as decided by the US supreme court]. Frankly, your opinion isn't relevant. I encourage you to raise and educate your children int he manner you deem most appropriate. Just leave me alone so that I can do the same.
We are going back a good number of years here and like all beliefs, they tend to change over time. But what is wrong with giving everyone an equal and uniform education across the country?
Because "equal" doesn't specify equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. Rightists and libertarians beleive in the former. Leftists want the latter.
We keep saying that everyone has the same opportunity to make it here, but is that really true if we abolished the public school system altogether (like you are in favor of) and relied on private education.
Kids don't get the same clothing. Some kids have to ride a bus 2 hours to get to school, (like where i grew up), while others drove daddy's car to school and showed up late anyway.
Removing everyones choice doesn't make anyones lot better. Removing parental advantage destroys one of the key reasons parents work so hard for their families.
The equality of opportunity in America is simply this: if you want to do something, the government won't stop you. We were the first society where your bloodline didn't determine your standing in society BY LAW. Kids with rich parents still have certain advantages, but there is nothing in our LAW that prevents you from going as far as your talents and your passions enable you. That is what equal opportunity means. No one can stop you. Only yourself.
It is safe to say that my kid would attend a better school and receive a superior education vs what a single mothers child would receive (if any school would be available at all).
You're confused on two points.
First, there is a public interest in ensuring that any child or family that wants to go to school can do so. There is not a public justification for REQUIRING all children go to the SAME school.
Secondly, the education a kid receives has a lot to do with the kid. A better school can only "give" an education. Receiving it is up to the kid. Bush and Obama both went to cushy private schools, but I have better standardized test scores than either of them [and some kids that didn't get the advantages I had definitely outscore me]
The point is that you might send your kids to a better school, but apart from biological advantage, your kid will really determine how far he/she goes in life. Putting them in a better environment gives them certain advntages, but guarantees nothing. There are lots of rich stupid kids.
What I want is for the government to have no little or not control of WHO teaches and WHAT they teach. I am absolutely in favor of making sure that families that want their kids to go to school have a school to send them to. And unlike public education in the US, I'd let them choose what school that would be. I'd let the school -- and thus the parents, in a competitive school system -- determine which teachers were rewarded, which teaching styles were encouraged for which children, which topics were appropriate for school [as opposed to home], and so on.
the majority of people in this country attended public schools and we are hardly a nation of conformists.
Nonsense. The majority of the people in this country think the government should have more power and should control every aspect of their lives. They may not say it so directly but in broad strokes, they keep electing politicians that beleive and act on precisely that ideology. It doesn't matter whether they want fudge topping or chopped nuts, the ice cream flavor everyone orders is "more paternalism, please".
Look, the president doesn't beleive in public education for his own kids. He just nominated the guy that ran Chicago to run the whole US. Obama had the opportunity to show his faith in the value, the goals, etc, of public education when he lived in Chicago. For his OWN children, he clearly did not trust the new US education secretary to give his kids the education he wanted them to have.
What more damning criticism of public school could there be? Everyone on the left wants public school, except for their own children.
Fuck them. There isn't a ruling class in this country. They'll find out sooner or later.
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holy shit....cliffnotes for thrashes post?
who has time to read all that shit anyways?
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High school in the US is a joke. I hardly went to class, and when I did, I slept. Never studied for any tests nor did my homework until the period before it was due. I walked out of high school with a 3.6 GPA.
No wonder people in the United States are so fucking stupid.
It takes ZERO effort to pass high school. Show up and you pass. Therefor, unless your a pothead and rather do drugs than go to school to get "the paper", you deserve to be a failure at life.
Screw the dropout age being moved to 18. It's not going to do anything regardless. Kids still won't show up, kid's will still sleep through class, etc.
Whether the age is 16 or 18, the US is going to stay dumb as shit until they make high school more challenging.
My cousin is currently going to school in Japan and they literally will not let you use a calculator for math. Reason being.. They want to make the kids LEARN and apply themselves.
This bill is dumb and imo won't solve anything.
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Link;264528 wrote:
High school in the US is a joke. I hardly went to class, and when I did, I slept. Never studied for any tests nor did my homework until the period before it was due. I walked out of high school with a 3.6 GPA.No wonder people in the United States are so fucking stupid.
It takes ZERO effort to pass high school. Show up and you pass. Therefor, unless **your **a pothead and rather do drugs than go to school to get "the paper", you deserve to be a failure at life.
Screw the dropout age being moved to 18. It's not going to do anything regardless. Kids still won't show up, kid's will still sleep through class, etc.
Whether the age is 16 or 18, the US is going to stay dumb as shit until they make high school more challenging.
My cousin is currently going to school in Japan and they literally will not let you use a calculator for math. Reason being.. They want to make the kids LEARN and apply themselves.
This bill is dumb and imo won't solve anything.
you're
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thrash;264520 wrote:
Here's a big thrash post. Skip to the bottom if you want the bottom lineI enjoy your posts, even if I don't agree with them.
Well, there are people who truly aren't cut out for a job, due to some non-self-inflicted disability that prevents them from being effective for any purpose.Agreed
I wouldn't kick jobless people out of the US. They're free to be here. But unless they're the people I mentioned above, who truly must be cared for by society, I'm not in favor of making it easy for the able bodied to remain unproductive at the expense of unwilling sponsors.Also agreed
Not everyone is cut out for the same kind of job, but luckily, there are lots of different kinds of jobs out there.Wow...three agreements in a row...this is getting good.
But the problem with government-run education is that <u>there is really only one kind of school,</u> and that is by design. People are different, and not only do public schools not serve that reality well, they are designed in broad strokes to trample and crush those differences.I disagree...and I'll point out where you disagree with yourself a little further down
Luckily, my education greatly eclipsed the mandatory service I did in public school.Same
I was doing pay-extra-for-nerdy-kids summer programs from the time I was about 6 years old. Were you writing software on the Apple 2 and C64 when you were in elementary school? Were you programming a robotic milling machine in middle school? Did your dad help you finish calculus all the way through multi-variable before you left highschool, so that you started college day 1 with a math minor and a full ride?I was writing basic programs for TRS-80's when I was in 3rd grade. I have a simple program that broke down the elemental table and showed what would happen if you mixed various elements...it even had a variable for heating them up to change the chemical composition. I was taught the basics of this by the computer teacher that was teaching the seniors in my school how to program in basic....the rest I figured out on my own mostly.
But no, my parents were light years behind me in math/science, even though they had attended the same school I was attending when they were younger.
We moved every few years to make sure i was in the "Best" school district, generally, and my dad was pretty instrumental at making sure that I was learning stuff when I wasn't in jail/school.I thought there was only one type of school? How could one be better than another if they were essentially the same? Also, when did uniformity become a bad thing? Why can't we have standards of education that everyone should be taught? Those that can't cope with the enormity of school are the same ones who can't cope with having a job that you mention above.
The world is larger than your experiences.Agreed
The more homeschooled kids I meet, the more my resolve is strenghtened. You also do what may others do: you set a false bar. Many publicly schooled children are not productive members of society, or don't relate well to people. Why should homeschooled kids be held to a standard that public school has never met? Why is that even the appropriate standard?Again, I can only go by my experiences as can you....nearly EVERY kid that I've met that was home schooled (and yes, I know more than a handful) turned out worse by the time they were in their 20's than almost ANY kid that I knew that went to public/private schools. Again, these are MY personal experiences. This is my take on it. I did not say that your kid(s) would fall into the same category, they may be the exception. My bar is set pretty low actually, 80% of the public school kids meets my criteria (approx) of having the skills necessary to survive in the real world...less than 5% of those that I HAVE MET meet this coming from the home school side.
If I meet a kid that cannot articulate what is going on in "American Idol", that's a virtue in my book.Is American Idol still on TV? Seriously, I have no clue (no sarcasm)
Relating as peers to the malevolent, the narrow, the shallow.. this is not something I'd choose to optimize my life or my education around. Would you?Relating to peers...no, but being able to handle these people in the real world starts at a young age. It is your responsibility as a parent to ensure that your kids are taught to make the right choices...it is their responsibility to sometimes not make the right choices and to learn from them.
This is an intrinsic failing of the public school system: that we need to optimize the course of eduction, the level of societal interaction, and the majority of the content and time, around the average person. THere are no average people. Some people cannot keep up with "Average", and some people cannot possibly have their attention held by "average". Everyone loses out, to varying degrees.Which is why there are alternative classes, introduction classes, and advanced classes offered in nearly every school....heck there are even alternate highschools to deal with those that don't/can't meet the standards of the "normal" high schools.
No one is average, but no one is above/below average either. They just accell at different things. Schools have elective classes to nurture the aspects that kids want to learn more about.
I have nothing against lifetime sandwhich artists -- they're doing *something *. But I want a different experience for myself, and hopefully for my children.I have nothing against them either. I want my child to do whatever it is that he feels will make him happy for a living. As long as it is not illegal and as long as he is trying, he will have my undivided support.
Finally, you don't own anyone's children, and neither does the state [as decided by the US supreme court]. Frankly, your opinion isn't relevant. I encourage you to raise and educate your children int he manner you deem most appropriate. Just leave me alone so that I can do the same.This is the best argument that I've seen in this thread. And BTW, if you homeschool, you are exempt from that law anyway.
Because "equal" doesn't specify equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. Rightists and libertarians beleive in the former. Leftists want the latter.I believe in equal opportunity...what you do with that opportunity is up to you.
Kids don't get the same clothing. Some kids have to ride a bus 2 hours to get to school, (like where i grew up), while others drove daddy's car to school and showed up late anyway.I also had the 2 hour bus ride...some of my closest friends (and bloodiest fights) occured on that bus. I'd say that it helped me become who I am. I ran with the opportunity presented to me. In HS I drove my car to school 99% of the time.
Removing everyones choice doesn't make anyones lot better. Removing parental advantage destroys one of the key reasons parents work so hard for their families.
The equality of opportunity in America is simply this: if you want to do something, the government won't stop you. We were the first society where your bloodline didn't determine your standing in society BY LAW. Kids with rich parents still have certain advantages, but there is nothing in our LAW that prevents you from going as far as your talents and your passions enable you. That is what equal opportunity means. No one can stop you. Only yourself.So...really.....there shouldn't be any laws/rules/regulations. We shouldn't have laws that prevent monopolies from forming. We shouldn't have any rules governing mankind. We shouldn't regulate who has access to national security documents....I mean, I might want to improve our national security, but I won't know how unless I see those documents and those fuckers at the pentagon just won't share.
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You're confused on two points.
First, there is a public interest in ensuring that any child or family that wants to go to school can do so. There is not a public justification for REQUIRING all children go to the SAME school.No one requires it now. In ND you have open enrollment, you can pretty much go where ever you want.
Secondly, the education a kid receives has a lot to do with the kid. A better school can only "give" an education. Receiving it is up to the kid. Bush and Obama both went to cushy private schools, but I have better standardized test scores than either of them [and some kids that didn't get the advantages I had definitely outscore me]
The point is that you might send your kids to a better school, but apart from biological advantage, your kid will really determine how far he/she goes in life. Putting them in a better environment gives them certain advntages, but guarantees nothing. There are lots of rich stupid kids.Agreed as well. However, if the "rich" hire all of the best/most competent teachers from the pool at higher pay, it is fairly safe to say that the "poor" will have to deal with a 2nd class education at best with 2nd class materials to learn from.
What I want is for the government to have no little or not control of WHO teaches and WHAT they teach. I am absolutely in favor of making sure that families that want their kids to go to school have a school to send them to. And unlike public education in the US, I'd let them choose what school that would be. I'd let the school -- and thus the parents, in a competitive school system -- determine which teachers were rewarded, which teaching styles were encouraged for which children, which topics were appropriate for school [as opposed to home], and so on.I'm with you on about 75% of this....I still want school attendance to be mandatory until you are 18 though.
Nonsense. The majority of the people in this country think the government should have more power and should control every aspect of their lives. They may not say it so directly but in broad strokes, they keep electing politicians that beleive and act on precisely that ideology. It doesn't matter whether they want fudge topping or chopped nuts, the ice cream flavor everyone orders is "more paternalism, please".If that is true and it is the will of the people, then I'd say that democracy is working? The people are getting what they want and what they voted for?
Look, the president doesn't beleive in public education for his own kids. He just nominated the guy that ran Chicago to run the whole US. Obama had the opportunity to show his faith in the value, the goals, etc, of public education when he lived in Chicago. For his OWN children, he clearly did not trust the new US education secretary to give his kids the education he wanted them to have.A good point, but Obama's kids went to the school that he taught at "the University of Chicago Lab School" of course he's going to send his kids there. But your point is well taken.
What more damning criticism of public school could there be? Everyone on the left wants public school, except for their own children.See above....and come on, if you were president, would you send your kids to a public school? I wouldn't. Not because of the poor education, but rather because of the security and other crap that comes with being the child of a president. I don't envy the kids of presidents at all.
Fuck them. There isn't a ruling class in this country. They'll find out sooner or later.Agreed.
See, we mostly agree on things. Our views on some issues differ, but at the end of the day, I'd say we agreed on more than we disagreed on....I think if everyone looked beyond their party lines and had open discussions like this, you would find that it would be hard to tell one side from the other at the end of the day.
This is the point I've tried to make all along with my political threads/posts/rants/etc... as soon as we all get over ourselves and stop playing the blame game and start playing the working together game, this country will be great again. It's too bad that so many peoples egos prevent this from becoming a reality.
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RidinRails;264526 wrote:
who has time to read all that shit anyways?This guy
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Parker;264523 wrote:
Did public schooling make you equal? Uniform? Did it turn you into a conformist?It obviously did not prepare me to understand what your point is.
Based on your post, since public school failed to do to me what it was designed to do, public school is good?
Sorry, I'm not really getting what you're after here.
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Link;264528 wrote:
My cousin is currently going to school in Japan and they literally will not let you use a calculator for math. Reason being.. They want to make the kids LEARN and apply themselves.
Sounds like the high school I went to in ND. -
thrash;264541 wrote:
Based on your post, since public school failed to do to me what it was designed to do, public school is good?I'd say that public school isn't designed to conform you at all or make you uniform. It's designed to introduce you to a large variety of people...people you will have to deal with in society.
It does give every kid a basic chance/opportunity to gather the minimal skills necessary to survive in the real world.
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D S ohM;264544 wrote:
My brain hurts. Too much reading.drop out now...before you learn something.
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thrash;264541 wrote:
It obviously did not prepare me to understand what your point is.Based on your post, since public school failed to do to me what it was designed to do, public school is good?
Sorry, I'm not really getting what you're after here.
Thank you for proving my point.... -
Trafik Jamz;264539 wrote:
No one requires it now. In ND you have open enrollment, you can pretty much go where ever you want.The point is that you have to go somewhere. And that somewhere has to meet standards set by the government. And ND is one of the most anti-homeschooling states in the US. I encourage you to support ND HB 1171 if you are an ND resident, since it will make homeschooling easier.
I'm with you on about 75% of this....I still want school attendance to be mandatory until you are 18 though.
Why?
If that is true and it is the will of the people, then I'd say that democracy is working? The people are getting what they want and what they voted for?
But this isn't a democracy. It's a republic. What most of the people want isn't necessarily what the law should be. The law, infact, is supposed to protect individuals and minorities from the fashionable wims of the mob. A republican form of government (not the party, but the form of government) is based on a system of written laws, and our republican government is founded on the constitution, a negative rights document, enumerating the powers of the government.
See above....and come on, if you were president, would you send your kids to a public school? I wouldn't. Not because of the poor education, but rather because of the security and other crap that comes with being the child of a president. I don't envy the kids of presidents at all.
Well, I'm not president, and I don't plan on sending my kid to any school at all
See, we mostly agree on things. Our views on some issues differ, but at the end of the day, I'd say we agreed on more than we disagreed on....I think if everyone looked beyond their party lines and had open discussions like this, you would find that it would be hard to tell one side from the other at the end of the day.
Ok but the key point we disagree on is that you feel that the state should compel students to do something they may not want to do. Furthermore, in practice, this means they should do it in the same place that other kids who want to be there [or don't NOT want to be there badly enought to run away/piss of their parents/whatever] will be in the same educational "pot".
How do you make one room, one teacher, and one set of textbooks work as jail for some kids and education for others?
One other important point. Let me state the following: suppose for a moment that I think keeping kids in school until they're 18 is best for me, best for them, and best for society.
Is that sufficient reason to make it law? It's just my opinion. By what authority does the state have the right to imprison kids? Is it ok of prison is spelled s-c-h-o-o-l ? If the aim here is to put kids that cannot be "Trusted" to be responsible into some sort of prison or detention, why not just do that?
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Trafik Jamz;264546 wrote:
I'd say that public school isn't designed to conform you at all or make you uniform.Finish the article at mises.org and see if you still think so
It's designed to introduce you to a large variety of people...people you will have to deal with in society.
Public school mostly taught me that i didn't want to deal with certain people in society. It's what I learned outside of public school that gave me the tools to largely acheive that in my life.
It's not clear that society should force people to associate with people they'd rather not associate with. Infact, I think I remember reading about some kind of freedom of association thing somewhere in our founding documents (those same documents that are the only things that bind us together as "Americans", since we share no common ancestry, no common race, no common religion, etc. I wish they'd spent more time on *that *in public school....)
It does give every kid a basic chance/opportunity to gather the minimal skills necessary to survive in the real world.
Is this exclusively a feature of public schooling as we know it, or could this be satisfied in other ways? And if this is the only justification for public schooling, how are we to judge its success? Certainly not by the number of people who allegedly slip "Below poverty" every year. Certainly not by the graduation rates of HS seniors. Certainly not by the need to re-center SAT and ACT scores "upward" over time.
By what metric would you conclude that Americans are largely surviving in the real world? By what reasoning would you lay that at the foot of the effectiveness of public school?
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