Where are we going wrong with the educational system

Jackmartin

I had for me ,a sad experience last week. I am one of those peculiar people who really enjoy mathematics, I did not say I was great at it ,I just like it. I was at one of the two biggest trade/ high schools in Winnipeg working on a stuck rad valve, steam system. The only time I could gain access was during a class, I tried my best to be as quiet as possible( din’t swear once). The class was on consumer math or what it is more commonly called practical math. I could not stop from hearing the lesson and I was appalled. The instructor ,infinite patience ,was explaining to the youngsters how paying rent on an apartment works. He asked the class if I have to pay rent twice a month ,say two hundred dollars every two weeks what will I pay in a month? I of course thought what a stupid question, why is this man wasting these kid’s time. Oh he of little faith, no one could tell him the answer! So he tried again with a different approach, still no go. I am an impatient person, one of my many character flaws, so I blurt out 400.00 dollars. The teacher was a class act ,he thanked me for my input, and asked his class how I came up with the answer. Finally, one young lady told him I added 200 to itself. The teacher was effusive with his praise for her thinking. Where are we failing these kids? Although, there is something they are good at —— well it does come naturally. We had a job in the same school to cap all the supplies to the stairwell rads because, sorry Erin, they were having intimate moments if you get my drift. I would suppose it is difficult to study in the nude.

CBRob

Ask those same kids how much an 1/4 bag of weed is if they pay 10 bucks a gram and at least half of them will know.

KC_Jones

Jackmartin said:

He asked the class if I have to pay rent twice a month ,say two hundred dollars every two weeks what will I pay in a month?

Those are 2 conflicting statements and the question can not be answered as asked. Every 2 weeks would be 26 payments per year, twice per month would be 24 payments per year.

If it's twice a month then yes the answer is 400, but if the question is every 2 weeks then the payment is 433.33 per month.

If a person wants to talk money and budgeting these details are critical, especially when teaching.

I would have called the teacher out, as I did many times during my school career.

mattmia2

I think this class is likely the people who are forced to be there, not the people who are trying. The failure happened a long time ago when those particular kids were made to not want to be there.

HVACNUT

I'm more of a punctuation snob myself. 😁

GroundUp

I can count on one hand the amount of 30 year old peers of mine who have even the slightest clue about finance, taxes, and other such items that should come with adulthood. It's quite disturbing. My mother is a supervisor at a local bank and has been trying for years to get the high school to allow someone in for a little finance seminar; trying to teach kids a little about money before they're forced to head off to college and are bombarded with credit card applications, student loans, etc so they have an idea what life will cost. The school refuses, every time. She does teach a similar course for anyone and everyone willing to attend, regardless of age, and has said several times how surprising it is the amount of even retirement age folks that attend the courses with nary a clue how they will pay for life until they get the next paycheck. Our educational system has been lacking for a very long time, in several areas. Heck, just scrolling through the occasional Facebook feed full of adults with nothing but spelling errors and the inability to perform mundane tasks or do basic math gives me the willies. And I'm a moron

Solid_Fuel_Man

I can't spell... but spellcheck hides that on here!

It seems that finances are learned not at school, but at home at an early age. I mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, etc all for cash long before I had a driver's license. Rode my bicycle to do the work. My parents were both working-class people and we were by no means poor. But they told me if I wanted something I had to work for it. They made me put 1/2 (50%!) away in a savings account. When I got my first car, a 16 year old VW that money i had saved came in handy!

Been working on a cash economy ever since. Only loan I've ever had was for building materials when I build my house.

All of this isnt to say that I'm smart, it just goes to show that it's more of a parenting issue than a public education issue.

FWIW, my wife grew up on a working farm and learned the vary same things, we are both extreme savers. Hasn't hurt us yet.

JUGHNE

KC you are correct with the rent actually being $433 per month.
But the teacher was just trying to get them to multiply by 2.
These will be those who think a 200 payment every two weeks is only 400 month.....4800 per year....... never doing the math of 26 x 200 and actually realizing they are paying 5200 per year.
He feels accomplished to get the X 2 factor across.

Groundup, I feel that the school system suffers from hubris, and would not concede that they must bring in anyone to cover those bases. After all, she may not have a academic degree, not be a certified teacher (union) and might have only 30 some years of real world experience (which many in academia might lack).

Give a listen to Dave Ramsey Utubes. Especially the student loan calls. He had a show dedicated to callers who had over 100,000 in student loans and what they had to show for it......pastry chef was a good example.

HomerJSmith

The problem is the high school sys is graduating student who have spent the last 4 yrs in a drug induced coma.

EBEBRATT-Ed

If they can't find the answer on Google they are not interested.

The rent question is probably a 6th grade??? math problem. Sad that anyone in high school would have problems with that

KC_Jones

The education system is, for the most part, fine. The problem is parents, as long as that problem gets ignored things will only get worse. Frankly I’m getting tired of people pointing at the schools and giving parents an easy out. Parenting is full time including teaching. A school presents information it’s my responsibility as a parent to make sure my child is learning that information.

Don't believe me? Talk to the parents of all the children being spoken of, I do almost daily. If my kids come out of school uneducated, that's my fault. Period.

ratio

@KC_Jones, you're right with regards to the parents, who have primary responsibility for their children (education or otherwise), but you can't give the school systems a buy. They are, for the most part, actively working against parents. What passes for education today is little more than indoctrination with a side of training—nothing like a liberal education (note: liberal in the classical sense, not in the political sense).

ChrisJ

> @ratio said:
> @KC_Jones, you're right with regards to the parents, who have primary responsibility for their children (education or otherwise), but you can't give the school systems a buy. They are, for the most part, actively working against parents. What passes for education today is little more than indoctrination with a side of training—nothing like a liberal education (note: liberal in the classical sense, not in the political sense).

Ok I'll bite.

How are they doing this? Working against parents?

ratio

This is getting pretty far afield & I'm reluctant to continue on The Wall. Feel free to PM me & we can discuss it at length.

ChrisJ

> @ratio said:
> This is getting pretty far afield & I'm reluctant to continue on The Wall. Feel free to PM me & we can discuss it at length.

No, no. I see no reason not to continue here especially considering the title of the thread.

Since we have several here saying the education system is failing and apparently going against parents in curious how?

Both @KC_Jones and I have kids in school.

CBRob

> @ChrisJ said:
> > @ratio said:
> > @KC_Jones, you're right with regards to the parents, who have primary responsibility for their children (education or otherwise), but you can't give the school systems a buy. They are, for the most part, actively working against parents. What passes for education today is little more than indoctrination with a side of training—nothing like a liberal education (note: liberal in the classical sense, not in the political sense).
>
> Ok I'll bite.
>
> How are they doing this? Working against parents?
>
>

Not really as grim a picture as we might try to paint, and no different than my generation either.
For every kid having to take consumer math to graduate there is another kid cramming to get an A in calculus. ( Maybe not a 1:1 ratio,lol)
I live in a small town with well funded schools and a waiting list to be a teacher.
Kids there graduate with a leg up on those in under funded public schools.

KC_Jones

@ratio I don’t know what your personal experience is with the current school system, but the current system my children are in couldn’t bend over backwards any further to support parents.

What you describe is a good fit for what I experienced when I was in school in the 80’s and 90’s. You did it their way or you were wrong, even with correct answers. There was no allowance for children who’s brains worked differently (like mine).

What I hear from the parents these days, “I don’t understand so it’s wrong”. Well a parents lack of understanding is an opportunity for them to learn not bad mouth a teacher or a school system. A persons lack of understanding is their problem, but we can’t have that because people would have to admit their faults (sarcasm is heavy here). If a parent isn’t willing to admit their shortcomings and do something about it they are stifling a child’s education not the school.

CBRob

It's interesting to see how the economics of education impact the results.
See where your high school falls on the list.
It's sad to see the rankings of some poor rural communities. Also cool to see what happens when you have $$$ infused into the system.
Take Walter Payton as an example, his name sake school in Chicago is number 9 in the country.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings

ratio

I have unpopular opinions about things. If my children were to espouse them in a public school. they'd be in trouble.

The truth is, I don't want to go in to details in a public medium like this because I don't want to make my family a target—and you know that's a real, if remote, possibility.

Additionally, while I can speak reasonably about things to an individual, or even several, I'm not so skilled that I could take on everyone who might be offended at once.

HomerJSmith

"Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality."
Thomas Sowell

Solid_Fuel_Man

I have two kids in public schools, and it's my job to follow up with them. We have regular parent-teacher conferences and keep close tabs on their progress or lack thereof, and make the necessary adjustments if there is a problem.

HomerJSmith

Solid-Fuel-Man, that's all and good. But it is what you teach them that really counts. Kids are uncannily observant and eagerly want to learn until their desire to want to learn get squashed in the public education sys that sees conformity as more important than learning. That's what happened to me. It wasn't until later in life that I re-discovered learning, and loved it. Kid pay more attention to what they learn from you. Be careful what you teach them. Think about your life experiences and what is worthy to pass on to them. They will hold that dear.

Jean-David Beyer

I never had any kids of my own, but I knew a lot of kids of friends of mine. When I went to college, I got a B.A. in mathematics.

I remember trying to help a sixth (?) grader do long division. She just did not get it. I quickly determined the problem was she could not multiply. Somehow she passed fifth grade math where they supposedly learned to multiply. So I taught her how to multiply, then taught her to do long division. She came home after the next test in tears. She had gotten the correct answers, but she had done it "the wrong way." I asked her what the right way was, but she could not explain it to me.

DanHolohan

There's a learning disability called dyscalculia: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/what-is-dyscalculia

I was born with this. I compensate for it in visual ways.

Gordy

Sounds like @Jackmartin ended up in a resource class.

There were resource class kids when I was in school. Not a lot of them, maybe a couple.

I think resource classes have grown over the years. Kids that get left in the dust by the mainstream pupils in what ever curriculum.

I also think kids get labeled with more learning disorders than in the past.

In my opinion, how we learn has changed a lot. Also Thirst for knowledge.

Today, anyone who has internet access can find an answer to their question using google.

We are turning into a learn as you need it society. Rather than learn it, and retain it.

My daughters were never honors class students. However a lot of their friends were. Wow. A lot of them very book smart, but no real world common sense...

As I watched them grow into college, and beyond to careers. They were all over the place. Not what you’d expect from someone with honors capabilities in high school.

Gordy

DanHolohan said:

There's a learning disability called dyscalculia: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/what-is-dyscalculia

I was born with this. I compensate for it in visual ways.

Autism is another. Many different levels of autism.

HomerJSmith

Jean-David Beyer, that's sad. It is an example of what our education system has devolved to.

HomerJSmith

"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."
Thomas Sowell

DanHolohan

Search or Research?
https://heatinghelp.com/blog/search-or-research/

Gordy

HomerJSmith said:

Jean-David Beyer, that's sad. It is an example of what our education system has devolved to.

My oldest daughter was given the pleasure of having the same algebra teacher that I had In high school.

Her first day the teacher said. I remember your father sat in the same desk you are sitting in. Let’s hope you do better than he did.........

Mrs. Foster is one of those teachers that has “her Own way” of teaching algebra. To get outside class room help, you had to find a tutor that was familiar with her tactics.

Her turn out rate of above average success was very low. Yet she was locked into the system for decades........

Gordy

DanHolohan said:

Search or Research?

https://heatinghelp.com/blog/search-or-research/

Exactly! I enjoyed that past piece.

Google is like going to a library where fiction, and nonfiction books are all thrown together in the same section.

KC_Jones

HomerJSmith said:

Jean-David Beyer, that's sad. It is an example of what our education system has devolved to.

@Jean-David Beyer what time period were you in school with this experience?

HomerJSmith

"Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination."
Thomas Sowell