I have a question for people who live in any country with a halfway decent education system: how do we get our technocrat overloads to educate us?
I'm not really taking about the university system, even though what I mean most definitely affects it. General education requirements taught me what I should have learned at some point during my K-12 education. I could have saved two years if someone had only taught me that history didn't start with the Revolutionary War, or that we actually have explanations of how our natural world operates, or that English isn't the only language on Earth. All that shit I learned from books and documentaries--and I could have read a whole Hell of a lot more if I didn't have to hear nearly grown individuals ask what a goddamned preposition was or "what is parallel lines means (sic)?"
As a language major, it makes me bought as ornery as a billygoat when I hear freshman tell me "oh yeah I forgot most of the German I learned at my (private/charter) middle school," when I wasn't even offered but two semesters of French at my high school. One of my colleagues is from the Philippines; she claims that when she came to the United States, our education was two years behind what she had taken. To quote her "... it's strange that the schools here would be behind those of a third-world country"
Tl;dr US education sucks, how do we get the gubbament to fix it?
>>296384
>how do we fix it?
You can't, it's too late.
>>296404
>this is what some people think actualisation is
>>296404
I don't think so. Europeans used to be a bunch of ignorant serfs getting their land wrecked by nobles. Eventually they got educated so much that they realised its better to work together than to set the continent on fire every time some dipshit with a silly title dies. Something was fixed in between this time.
The curious thing is just what is faulty about the American Education system. I know it's poorly planned when European posters can show a solid understanding of their own continent for any period it's relevant while Americans must take advanced classes just to have a full view on the very basics of world history. Perhaps it's due to unimportant classes in the curriculum. I'm not sure if this extends to every state in the US, but at least in Georgia we have a mandatory Georgia Studies class before high school that teaches little and could be left out entirely.
The biggest problem is how US-centric it all is. Outside of world history in high school, there is no mention of non-American history or events besides a few things like the Columbian Exchange, World Wars, Apartheid, and the Holocaust.
>>296533
>I know it's poorly planned when European posters can show a solid understanding of their own continent for any period it's relevant
But can the average Euro do that? People who post on /his/ don't really count, because they have an interest in history.
>>296404
I don't see any problems with this
>>296549
Oh no they can't. A very large majority of them can't.
Frenchfag here, I'd say that at best, you can find, say, four people out of ten who could draw you an approximate map of France on a specific period, and tell you in what century some of our kings lived, and give some broad dates for wars we were involved after the XVIII century. Not always much more, but all things considered that's already good.
>>296491
>Europeans used to be a bunch of ignorant serfs getting their land wrecked by nobles.
What?
>>296384
Small classes and motivated students do wonders.
Start segregating classes in three levels of intelligence by age of 12
Uni educated teachers
>>296549
That's a good point. As much as I hate to use this site for a scale, though, history threads on /int/ or /pol/ seem to show this pretty clearly. The European posters there seem to have a decent understanding of periods in time that I have no clue about, and I was at the top of my class in school. I see American posters otherwise with the same amount of knowledge typically.
It's a big generalization, but all signs point to a very weak history education for Americans in comparison.
>>296587
There's no good way to compare this considering our history is much shorter and easier to understand. Still, I'd say the vast majority of Americans could tell you almost nothing about European history outside of the World Wars or the French Revolution.
>>296595
>three levels of intelligence by age of 12
Terrible idea.
Separating classes into smaller groups can work very well, but "intelligence" cannot and should not be the determining factor. You can do this by grades, or by motivation.
But of course, everyone would be buttmad about it because >MUH EQUALITY
>>296611
Yeah that's what I meant, grades = intelligence for most employees.
Anyways that's how we do it in the Netherlands and it seems to work rather well.
>>296533
>Georgia Studies
I'm from Alabama and we had a similar class. It can be summed up as "there were Indians, Andrew Jackson killed them, the civil war happened, the civil rights movement happened, the end"
I think every year, they taught the same arithmetic, then algebra from middle school onward. The humanities were American history and babby's first novels from 6th grade on.
>>296602
Well, he did ask if the average yuro could draw a map of Europe in most given time periods, and from what I can see as a teacher in France, the answer is clearly "no".
Though it gets a bit better with XX century history.
>>296620
>grades = intelligence
This statement makes me sad, and the fact that too many people still consider it true makes the pain even worse.
>>296629
>This statement makes me sad, and the fact that too many people still consider it true makes the pain even worse.
Fine read the wiki and that will explain what I meant.
Fuck sake man, how many languages do you have to learn?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Netherlands
>>296595
>Uni educated teachers
Yes except no. Being a specialist is one thing but the main issue with most teachers is that they either lack first hand experience before they get a post, or that they never had any formation in pedagody, don't know jack about how to prepare a viable program, set realistic and pertinant goals, put together a solid evaluation, etc.
That is especially true when working with younger classes, though working with adults doesn't mean you can just read something and expect everyone to understand and memorize.
>>296651
I am not saying that uni automatically makes a teacher better but in my experience they were never worse.
>>296625
There are a lot of problem areas in arithmetic as well, actually. While my school actually had excellent STEM programs for the most advanced students, the classes after that were abysmal. I missed the upper class due to test results, and so was placed with a poorly-planned curriculum where I twice spent the first semesters learning the same material. No one complains because for them it's an easy grade, and so the kinks are never worked out.
That's why nothing ever gets solved. The only education that matters to the school board is the very top, while the rest are left with being mediocre. The courses are called "on-level", but they really have no standards and will pass anyone that shows up. I wish I knew how to fix it but there doesn't seem a way.
>>296384
Give more money to schools. It's not that hard, Texas. And stop with the Of Pandas and People shit.
>>296678
We need to be able to fail. We need to demonstrate that being smart is a realistic ambition. I was called a "big nerd" in 11th grade because I knew what the atom bomb was. Antiintellectualism is ingrained in our culture (as evidenced by Frasier on Cheers/Frasier) and we let complete morons pass so they can pass on this animosity towards intellect. If we showed them that it is not okay to be willfully ignorant, this might change, but education has to change first. Maybe implement a "Dumb Children Left Behind Act"
>American Education
>>296893
that's clearly taken from a sunday school class
>>296914
still americans though.
>>296491
It's the nobles who realised it was better to work together. People just reluctantly follow whatever the leader tells them to do, and we only went from monarchy to republics because disgruntled peasants didn't have enough to eat those particular years
