It's official

[Walsingham]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...-years-ago.html

 

Exam results are two to three grades easier. I don't know why it's taken so long to prove. I have interviewed candidates with 5 freaking As at A-Level who were as switched on as a pound of butter; while people I knew who had three straight As were and are the cleverest around and couldn't have fitted in any more work.

 

Frankly I feel sorry for the poor bastards studying today. They obviously don't really get the chance to prove themselves.

[Tigranes]

Suspected this for years as well, across all kinds of countries - although, this usually breaks down in humanities/etc. We definitely learn skillsets or facts slower now, but analysis is a different cake.

 

It's hard for me to laugh/glee at this, though, because my age isi an inescapable caveat.

[Blarghagh]

I don't know about the UK, but here in Holland, your grades don't mean jack. High schools in Holland do not seem to value teaching important skills, and neither do colleges. (If it weren't for my one-and-a-half-year upcoming internships where I can actually learn something, I would have probably dropped out of college this year). And I constantly hear people who say that whatever they told them in school, the real deal never has anything to do with it, and occassionally everything is exactly the opposite.

 

"They obviously don't really get the chance to prove themselves." This is true, but I don't think you're using the same reasoning as I am. The grading system is inherently flawed. I constantly receive A's for doing absolutely nothing other than being previously familiar with the subject matter, whereas people who bust their asses and actually learn stuff will still get D's. Getting an A doesn't prove anything, and sometimes getting a D proves everything.

 

Somebody really needs to find a better way of schooling than what we have. Countries who pride themselves on their great school systems are deluding themselves - the current way schools are handled gives you a bunch of ninnies with no skillsets whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, somebody whose proud of getting an A is just dumb.

[Sand]

Some teachers are like that, while others aren't. One of my friends is a high school chemistry teacher down in a inner city St. Louis high school. First year there he flunked half of his students either due to sloppy work or they didn't bother to show up for class. Caused a bit of stir in parents and th rest of the faculty, but he stuck to his guns. Those same students had to retake his class and this time he only flunked a quarter of them.

[Tigranes]

I constantly receive A's for doing absolutely nothing other than being previously familiar with the subject matter, whereas people who bust their asses and actually learn stuff will still get D's.

 

I can see the former, but not the latter. I'm curious how that works over in Holland? I've got a friend who goes to uni there, but he's so jaded and cynical, I can't really get good info out of him.

[Blarghagh]

Well, our education system is different, so I'm just going to describe the basic problem without going into details. We have different levels of high school, different levels of college. Basically some **** teachers in elementary school decide where you go, and you're stuck with it. Right now I'm in a medium level of college, but I came from a high level of high school. There are people in my class who came from a low level high school, and whereas I've already had most of the math, physics and political economics that we're getting here, they haven't. And often things that took me two years to understand in high school are getting pressed into one semester of college. The people who haven't had it before basically don't stand a chance, especially if they have trouble with these things to begin with.

 

And don't even get me started on the plain idiocy of higher level math and the like being mandatory on this level of college, even in an animation school.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I blame rap music and cosmic radiation!

[Xard]

I blame GTA and bad Hollywood comedies!

[Volourn]

I blame the 'ol geezers who brag about how the days of Hilter, hippies, and Korea were some kind of sign of greater intelligence. L0L

 

Besdies, if it is a 'fact' that kidies nowadays are 'stupider'; I blame the 'ol geezers who thought it was cool to get high or aid their lovers get high while pregnant. Not to mention the inbreeding that was more common back then. It's called evolution coming back to haunt us.

 

Eitehr way, any problems todaya re 100% on the old geezers' heads.

 

Sorry, but it's true.

[Pidesco]

It's not that people are getting dumber, it's just that the more people enter school and go for "higher" education levels the lower the teaching standards have to be. I mean what was the percentage of the population that finished high school in the 50s, in England? And what is the percentage now?

 

In fact, I'm betting people are getting smarter not dumber, even if just marginally. A not very smart guy in Portugal, in the 30s, for example, would go through, at most, the first 4 years of school. Now, the same guy would at least finish 9th grade, probably the 12th as well. That has to help something, even if the difference is almost negligible.

[Moatilliatta]

I believe Pidesco is correct. That doesn't mean that we don't have huge problems in regards to education, it just means that we will solve those problems to better the future.

[Pidesco]

Also, I'd like to point out something else. The problem with this lowering of standards is not for your average student, but rather for the best in class who have a harder time achieving their potential due to not being challenged by the school system. Modern education systems probably make the smarter students lazier, unless the parents step in and push their kids towards excellence, themselves.

[Hurlshort]

Parenting is a HUGE factor here. Some days it seems like there are only two type of parents out there, the ones who barely exist in their child's life and the ones that coddle them so much that the child is overprotected.

[theslug]

I read this article written by a teacher a long time ago and it was pretty revealing. The system is solely designed for students to graduate and get good test scores so the schools can make money where actual learning is a secondary priority at best. The first year the teacher flunked about half his class and was threatened by parents and faculty alike to give the students passing grades and rework his curriculum or face the consequences.

 

As far as people getting smarter or dumber I would say we are becoming dumber in the sense that most people who can read, write, and do math, do it poorly. I would say however, that people know more now than they ever did in any previous generation but that doesn't exactly equate to intelligence. What I'm saying is that you had people like Adam Smith or Plato who revolutionized thought and the world. Now we have people who have memorized every pokemon ever conceived. And yes, I can compare some of the greatest minds against 14 year old children and get away with it because that's how I roll.

[Azarkon]

I blame video games.

 

...

 

What?

[Hurlshort]

I read this article written by a teacher a long time ago and it was pretty revealing. The system is solely designed for students to graduate and get good test scores so the schools can make money where actual learning is a secondary priority at best. The first year the teacher flunked about half his class and was threatened by parents and faculty alike to give the students passing grades and rework his curriculum or face the consequences.

 

As far as people getting smarter or dumber I would say we are becoming dumber in the sense that most people who can read, write, and do math, do it poorly. I would say however, that people know more now than they ever did in any previous generation but that doesn't exactly equate to intelligence. What I'm saying is that you had people like Adam Smith or Plato who revolutionized thought and the world. Now we have people who have memorized every pokemon ever conceived. And yes, I can compare some of the greatest minds against 14 year old children and get away with it because that's how I roll.

 

My wife lost her fist teaching job for pretty similiar reasons. She was teaching in a fairly wealthy community, a lot of white kids living in million dollar homes. She's a PE teacher, and PE has changed quite a bit over recent years. It's no longer coaches sending kids on laps and having them play dodgeball all period. She has a degree in kineseology and she expects to use it in the classroom. She expects to teach concepts about human movement, not just hold recess.

 

The problem was she couldn't even get these kids to dress out. How hard is it to wear PE clothes? It's not like these kids can't afford it. Then when she started failing them, she got tons of flak from the parents and no support from the administrators. She know in her first month that she wasn't going to be brought back for another school year. She finished the year out and happily went on to teach in a downtown school where the kids have real problems and no t make believe ones. When her kids don't dress out now it's very likely that cost IS the issue. And her current kids actually appreciate the fact that she is teaching, not just holding recess.

 

Funny thing is, the school that let her go is under governmental review for not teaching to the standards. My wife was the only teacher they had with the proper credential for her subject, and they let her go.

[Pidesco]

My wife lost her fist teaching job for pretty similiar reasons.

 

I'm guessing(hoping?) that's a typo...

[Tigranes]

Hi, I teach you the fist. Would you like?

[Walsingham]

Your fist is weak.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Swede universitys and mine in particular has this kind of a problem. We get funding based on how many kids are taken in, and how many get exams. So instead of only accpting the 10 or so potential CG students each year who are actually worth a damn, they accept like 40 people, a good share of them being complete morons. This pose a number of problems

 

 

1. since most of what we do is project based with people working in groups, you get one or two idiots in every group who infallibly ****s things up

 

2. the morons ruin classs by asking stupid questions and hogging the teachers one-on-one time so its very difficult to get help when you need it

 

3. the idiots do a very good job at ruining the schools reputation in the real world. we've already been more or less blacklisted by a dutch company

 

4. since morons cant cope and choose to quit(which is good) we have a dropout rate of 60-80%, and our uni is one of the worst ranked in the country(which is very bad since it makes the state keen on decreasing our funding even more, since we're clearly not using it right)

 

5. since funding is based on the number of students, the last year projects who are really cool and needs lots of cash, wont get as much funding as the first year because 60-80% of the students will have dropped out by third year

 

6. if you drop out of uni(or perform badly), you wont be able to get any more study loans, so a "moron" who maybe just chose the wrong thing to study, is effectively stopped from ever getting higher education in any field

 

 

...oh, this became quite a rant, didnt it?

[Hurlshort]

Damnit

[Rostere]

Swede universitys and mine in particular has this kind of a problem. We get funding based on how many kids are taken in, and how many get exams. So instead of only accpting the 10 or so potential CG students each year who are actually worth a damn, they accept like 40 people, a good share of them being complete morons. This pose a number of problems

 

 

1. since most of what we do is project based with people working in groups, you get one or two idiots in every group who infallibly ****s things up

 

2. the morons ruin classs by asking stupid questions and hogging the teachers one-on-one time so its very difficult to get help when you need it

 

3. the idiots do a very good job at ruining the schools reputation in the real world. we've already been more or less blacklisted by a dutch company

 

4. since morons cant cope and choose to quit(which is good) we have a dropout rate of 60-80%, and our uni is one of the worst ranked in the country(which is very bad since it makes the state keen on decreasing our funding even more, since we're clearly not using it right)

 

5. since funding is based on the number of students, the last year projects who are really cool and needs lots of cash, wont get as much funding as the first year because 60-80% of the students will have dropped out by third year

 

6. if you drop out of uni(or perform badly), you wont be able to get any more study loans, so a "moron" who maybe just chose the wrong thing to study, is effectively stopped from ever getting higher education in any field

 

 

...oh, this became quite a rant, didnt it?

 

It's basically the same thing in Swedish secondary school. The system where schools get funds based on how many students they have combined with the current notion that basically everyone should be able to start their own school (to provide a multitude of choices for the students) has catastrophic consequences. This will obviously create schools where the owners will try take out as much of the state funding as they can for themselves, and/ or schools which spend exessively much on advertisement.

 

There are actually lots of examples of these kinds of schools... Jensen, Cybergymnasiet, International IT College of Sweden, Europaskolan and many more. I wonder how long it will be until all students graduate with the same grades? I find it highly ironical that our current government who claim they take education very seriously are contributing to this system that 1) will end in a devaluation av grades, (the goal of their political adversaries!) 2) is a reckless waste of government funding 3) is a stab in the back for those students who deserve their grades and for those who get ads in the subway instead of qualified teachers.

[Walsingham]

That university thing sounds terrible. They don't make any distinction between why people drop out? I would suggest that the Minister responsible drop out, and be henceforth unable to get government funding.

[Azure79]

Does anyone think that the proliferation of mass media(such as PCs and the internet, cell phones, PDAs, etc) devices might have anything to do with dwindling education levels? Since everyone has so much information, they try to reduce everything into small manageable pieces, or just sift through the bare essentials, trying to soak up as much as possible. As a result concentration, attention span, basically things needed for a good education, get thrown to the wayside.

 

Just a thought.

[taks]

^kaftan:

 

1. since most of what we do is project based with people working in groups, you get one or two idiots in every group who infallibly ****s things up

hehe, this is actually closer to the real-world than you may think.

 

2. the morons ruin classs by asking stupid questions and hogging the teachers one-on-one time so its very difficult to get help when you need it

hate to tell you, but when trying to learn, there aren't really any stupid questions. not everyone has the same idea as to what constitutes a "good" question, so this is one of the things you have to put up with in just about any school setting.

 

3. the idiots do a very good job at ruining the schools reputation in the real world. we've already been more or less blacklisted by a dutch company

 

4. since morons cant cope and choose to quit(which is good) we have a dropout rate of 60-80%, and our uni is one of the worst ranked in the country(which is very bad since it makes the state keen on decreasing our funding even more, since we're clearly not using it right)

a high drop-out rate is not necessarily a bad thing, it means they're actually screening out those that can't cut it. how can the idiots be ruining the school's reputation if they are dropping out?

 

5. since funding is based on the number of students, the last year projects who are really cool and needs lots of cash, wont get as much funding as the first year because 60-80% of the students will have dropped out by third year

 

6. if you drop out of uni(or perform badly), you wont be able to get any more study loans, so a "moron" who maybe just chose the wrong thing to study, is effectively stopped from ever getting higher education in any field

this is part of my problem with purely state-funded schooling to begin with.

 

taks