What Should We Teach The Next Generation?

zagubov

misskool wrote: »

absolutely, i'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet but we need to teach young people to have critical thinking. The media is all powerful these days and young people are sheepies who follow what is going on around them.

We need them to be able to evaluate all that is going on around them and make the choices that is right for them.

All the information required for them to make decisions exists, they need to be able to think it through themselves.

Some schools do make people study this subject at AS level but others have argued that it's contentless and shouldn't be counted. I feel it should be taught more widely and earlier.

vivatifosi wrote: »

The kids I see who are doing poorly at school are, for the most part, not stupid. They just don't see what use learning that particular subject, or group of subjects, is to them.....

In short there are two problems:
1) giving an education to those that aren't interested in academia that meets their future needs,
without 2) devaluing traditional academic subjects for those that will go to university or some form of education. That's before we even start on the role of parenting...

The Salters Institute has gone a long way to developing courses for demotivated students so they can see the point in the facts and concepts they're learning, and (nobody seems to mention this) make links between the sciences.

This addresses part of viva's first point. Maybe we also need to retain traditional syllabuses for those with higher aims to maintain point 2.


I'm struck that society has changed so much that parents expect education to be something that schools deliver like the milkman delivers the milk.

I reead somewhere thiscountry spends more money on research into glue than research in education. It almost seems that the limited educational research going on currently is to try to slow the de-skilling of the next generation rathar than upgrading their knowledge and skill base above our own.

kabayiri

CLAPTON wrote: »

Interestly, years ago, before we dumbed down physics, 'circuitry' used to be taught as part of physics but now it's considered too difficult and polemics on global warming are taught instead.
...

This also struck me when I attended the open day for secondary school for DS2 and parents night for DS1.

Electronics boiled down to the level of lego; simple design courses to illustrate the 'cool' things you can do; letting kids freewheel and play with GarageBand for the Mac without understanding the core structures in music.

I asked the technology teacher about the wealth of equipment placed on the table in front of us. She seemed content and resigned to the limited use of oscilloscopes and signal generators.

It all felt underwhelming.

pqrdef

misskool wrote: »

As someone who does teach at a university, I wish we could rely on students having learnt something at school!

But you can't. This is unavoidable. Even if you could rely on the students all having passed an A level which includes a certain topic in the syllabus, you couldn't rely on them all actually having absorbed anything and retained it through their gap year. Anything you need them to know, you would still have to cover it at the point where you need it.

misskool wrote: »

I have previously taught first year students human genetics. Half the class had done the module in A-levels (or whatever they are called now) so got really bored when I had to catch up the other half

This only illustrates why it's a waste of everybody's time to do human genetics at A level. If they need it, they'll do it again.

BobQ

CLAPTON wrote: »

Sadly this is (almost) everything wrong with our general approach to schooling.
Everything you have said, however worthy, is the proper domain of parents.
We need schools to teach maths and science and knowledge of the world around us.

Very true.

pqrdef

vivatifosi wrote: »

without 2) devaluing traditional academic subjects for those that will go to university or some form of education.

Well I used to think I had a good grammar school education in traditional academic subjects. It took me a long time to realise how bad it was and how much of my precious youth it stole from me.

All those afternoons in the chemistry lab, refluxing this and titrating that, might possibly have been of some small value to the one member of the class who went on to study chemistry (though I wouldn't bet on it), but they were no use at all to anybody else. (And the chemistry student went into retail management.)

Trouble was, there was no course in as much chemistry as a non-chemist needs to know. There was only chemistry for chemists.

So why did we do it? Because the universities demanded 3 A levels, and the school made us stay on the premises all day, and nobody thought to call it wrongful imprisonment.

At the same time, there are many things I wish I'd had a better understanding of sooner. They're things I was never taught at school - but I don't see how I could have been. It's easy to say people need to be taught this and that and the other and a bit of everything else, but it's got no connection with what actually goes on in schools. To turn a subject into a school course, you have essentially to turn it into one of those books of revision notes, and you destroy it in the process.

zagubov

pqrdef wrote: »

But you can't. This is unavoidable. Even if you could rely on the students all having passed an A level which includes a certain topic in the syllabus, you couldn't rely on them all actually having absorbed anything and retained it through their gap year. Anything you need them to know, you would still have to cover it at the point where you need it.


This only illustrates why it's a waste of everybody's time to do human genetics at A level. If they need it, they'll do it again.

Maybe you shouldn't rely on them knowing it but it's easier to teach someone a subject that has been gone over before. The old "I tell you three times" principle .

pqrdef wrote: »

Well I used to think I had a good grammar school education in traditional academic subjects. It took me a long time to realise how bad it was and how much of my precious youth it stole from me.

All those afternoons in the chemistry lab, refluxing this and titrating that, might possibly have been of some small value to the one member of the class who went on to study chemistry (though I wouldn't bet on it), but they were no use at all to anybody else. (And the chemistry student went into retail management.)

Trouble was, there was no course in as much chemistry as a non-chemist needs to know. There was only chemistry for chemists.

So why did we do it? Because the universities demanded 3 A levels, and the school made us stay on the premises all day, and nobody thought to call it wrongful imprisonment.

At the same time, there are many things I wish I'd had a better understanding of sooner. They're things I was never taught at school - but I don't see how I could have been. It's easy to say people need to be taught this and that and the other and a bit of everything else, but it's got no connection with what actually goes on in schools. To turn a subject into a school course, you have essentially to turn it into one of those books of revision notes, and you destroy it in the process.

I can think of far more things that could be taught in school that aren't
British Sign Language
Touch typing (used to be here I think)
Highway code- even for pedestrians (US)
First Aid (France, IIRC)
Self Defence (israel)
Basic car mainenance or even just changing a tyre (part of the Japanese driving test I think).
Things that prepare people for coping with what life throws at them.

Most other countries manage to educate their kids better.Nobody envies our secondary education system- except mabe the Americans, whose higher education funding system we're trying to copy.
But are kids turning up at school ready and willing and prepared to learn.
If not, why not?
Do they pick up disrespect for education from their parents?

vivatifosi

I don't know what the answer is, but can we at least see what's happening in other countries? We're tumbling down international league tables and there must at least be something we can learn from why other countries are succeeding while we are not.

ETA: cross posted with zag.

misskool

pqrdef wrote: »

But you can't. This is unavoidable. Even if you could rely on the students all having passed an A level which includes a certain topic in the syllabus, you couldn't rely on them all actually having absorbed anything and retained it through their gap year. Anything you need them to know, you would still have to cover it at the point where you need it.


This only illustrates why it's a waste of everybody's time to do human genetics at A level. If they need it, they'll do it again.

So how far do we dumb down the subjects at secondary school level? What is the delineation between secondary and further education?

Many universities now have to ensure first year students in the sciences get refresher courses in Maths. What a waste of time when they could be studying their subject properly!

.

CLAPTON

misskool wrote: »

So how far do we dumb down the subjects at secondary school level? What is the delineation between secondary and further education?

Many universities now have to ensure first year students in the sciences get refresher courses in Maths. What a waste of time when they could be studying their subject properly!

.

indeed so

basically the first year at Uni in the sciences/maths is now a remedial year to bring everyone up to the same standard;

partly this is because the levels are dumbed down but also because the modular system means that different students have studied different topics.

So what were once 3 year courses are now 4 year courses ..OK relabelled at masters but no-one is fooled.

pqrdef

misskool wrote: »

Many universities now have to ensure first year students in the sciences get refresher courses in Maths. What a waste of time when they could be studying their subject properly!

Clearly it was the time spent on maths at school that was a waste of time.

Skip the 2-year A level and do a 4-year degree course requiring only GCSE-standard prerequisites, and you've actually saved a year (and a large amount of public money).