Fishing License

[Thomas Cameron]

Tim wrote:
> Tim:
>   
>>> But then I disagree with the notion of homework, anyway.  It's only
>>> value is to involve parents with their child's education, but most
>>> don't, or don't do it in a worthwhile manner.  The kids go to school to
>>> learn, at the end of the day they've done enough of that.  Likewise most
>>> parents have had enough work during their day, and don't want to spend
>>> several more hours doing work on something at home.
>>>
>>> It, homework, is pointless anyway.  I work in electronics, I highly
>>> technical field.  I've never needed anything I was taught at high school
>>> beyond basic maths in the first couple years, and the same applies for
>>> most people that I know in a wide variety of jobs.  All those nightly
>>> hours of grief were a complete waste of my time.  If I knew then what I
>>> knew now, I would have coasted school.  I would have flatly refused to
>>> waste my time with pointless rubbish, insisted that they constrain
>>> themselves to teaching things that were genuinely useful, and flatly
>>> refused to co-operate with any punishments meted out.  Even when I
>>> worked in schools I realised it was a pointless place for most people.
>>>       
>
> Thomas Cameron:
>   
>> That has got to be the dumbest argument I have ever heard in my life.
>>     
>
> Oh really?  Have you also spent around 15 years working in schools?  

Nope - grew up in a house with a parent, a grandparent, an aunt and an 
uncle who were all educators, all at post-grad or doctoral levels.

> I have.  

That terrifies me.  Where do you work so that I may make sure that my 
children stay the Hell away?

> I have practical experience from both sides of the fence that
> it's a pointless exercise.  Can you remember everything that you were
> taught at school?  

Of course.

> Do you use a fraction of it?
>
>   

All of it.  I don't think that I have ever said to myself "ah, yes, 
division of polynomials - I remember that in Ms. Wheat's class!"  But 
the numerous small, seemingly insignificant building blocks of my 
education have formed a solid foundation which I use daily.  As Gene 
mentioned, I continue to study and learn, many times at home.

> I did the highly academic subjects (English, Maths I & II [trig and
> algebra, I never remember which is which anymore, we didn't have
> calculus], Physics and Chemistry).  All of which were listed as
> prerequisites for my tertiary training, NONE of which were ever needed.
>
>   

You just don't get it.  All of those are tools to teach logic and 
reasoning as well as the mechanics of number crunching and 
manipulation.  It seems as though your view would have kids go into 
highly focused courses of study, say electronics, with no broad 
education in other topics.  How Orwellian.  Single-skilled people machines.

I am personally glad that I was educated in a school system which 
"forced" us to study topics which seemed unimportant at the time.  As 
Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to 
repeat it."  I hated history, thought it was boring and useless.  Now I 
see parallels between today's political environment and historical 
situations.  Had I been educated in your model, I would not be prepared 
to see those similarities.

>> The academic load at school is not just to teach you the fundamentals,
>> the core bits of knowledge about mathematics or sentence structure or
>> turning wood on a lathe.  The academic mix is to teach you about
>> pooling knowledge, to be able to associate dissimilar knowledge sets,
>> to (hopefully) think critically.
>>     
>
> Yes, schools *should* teach you how to learn, but they invariably don't.
> They teach by rote, they teach things that are incorrect, they have
> teachers that are incompetent (who not only don't really know about what
> they're teaching, they're hopeless *at* teaching), they make huge issues
> about ridiculous things (the colours of your socks) but put little
> effort into teaching someone grammar or how to properly spell (not
> anymore, at least).
>
>   

Then do something about it.  Tell your politicos that you want education 
reform.  But don't dismiss education out of hand.

> My critical assessement is that they don't do the job that they should
> do.  My moment of final disillusionment was when I asked the principal
> whether they thought the school should be teaching students in a manner
> that prepared them for life outside of the school, and her one word
> answer was, "no".  It wasn't an experience unique to that school,
> either.
>   

Possibly.  But your sample (one school) is not statistically 
significant.  Dismissing all education as worthless based on your single 
experience set is foolish.

> The dumbest arguments I hear are that schools *are* "practical"
> education institutions.  Those people that do have common sense, know
> how to figure things out, are creative, genuinely useful, etc., didn't
> learn that from school.  If anything, it dulls that out of most people.
>   

Horse feathers.  If you don't understand that each small educational 
building block leads to a better, more well-rounded person, than I don't 
think that you will ever understand the arguments I am making.

> In all the years I spent working in schools, the most practical
> education was the old non-school sort of mentoring, not the academic
> that they focus on.  The time spent on the practicalities of life and
> social interaction was more beneficial.  Those I've met who've been home
> schooled, or distance education out in the bush, were generally smarter
> people.  But in contrast, many of the main stream school students who're
> supposedly top of their class seem to be as thick as two short planks.
>   

I know a lot of folks who are those "thick as two short planks," 
top-of-their-class types who have knowledge and skills which I will 
never have.  I might seem to have more "common sense," but I can't do 
heart surgery or design a new engine or code a data warehouse.  Those 
folks worked harder than I did, they learned more than I did and they 
went further into the educational process than I did.

>> Learning, say, geometry might not *seem* to help you directly in your 
>> job, but every time you want to cut a board or navigate a curve in a 
>> car, you will be more likely to be successful if you understand the 
>> concepts of measuring and calculating the curves and angles.
>>     
>
> When I ride, throw a ball, or some other intuitive physical skill, I can
> tell you that I don't use physics to figure out how to do it.  Physics
> might explain the processes, but it's certainly not needed to do so.
> The skills involved in such basic tasks don't require several years of
> training either, just some apppropriate time for the task.
>
>   

That wake you see in the water is from the boat you missed.  You aren't 
comprehending what I am saying at all.

>> School is about learning to think, not silos of knowledge.  I am 
>> appalled that no one ever taught you that.
>>     
>
> It's not how schools work (they discourage thinking, they discourage
> individuality, they encourage obedience without question of any sort),
> hence my comments about it being a waste of time.


Again, you are making wild generalizations for which you have only 
anecdotal of hyperbole or anecdotal evidence.  Even with the sad state 
of affairs the popular media would have you believe our schools are in, 
the US turns out some incredibly bright, amazingly educated folks.  They 
excel because of, not in spite of, the broad education they have.

I would hate to live in a world where I could not expect the person next 
to me to be at least generally versed in literature, math, the sciences 
and so on.  I would be furious if my children's school did not offer 
them a broad education so that they could decide in what direction they 
wanted to go to specialize.

Thomas