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Meye RANT on American edyoucayshun
- Thread starter jeremy.king
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The key word in that statement is I, you are just talking about yourself and I would guarantee you are in the minority if compared to today's kids.
Computers are making people lazy, why bother learning math when a calculator can do it? Why bother learning to spell or how to make a complete sentence when a spell check or grammar check can fix it?
I used my wife as an example because she doesn't allow typed papers. Instead, she gets a pile of garbage with every assignment. I would venture to guess that 80% of her students can't spell or write a complete sentence.
Who to blame is a great question? Parents, Kids, Teachers, NCLB, gov't? You could argue any of those, but I do know that bad parenting is partially to blame. Again, that is my opinion.
As for the "phoenetic" mispelling, that was actually just a typo. Should have used a spellchecker
you make them sound evil.
you're wrong. i was using a personal example to show that it's PEOPLE who are lazy. tools just facilitate that better. you can't blame a TOOL becuase your kids are f***ing dumbasses. they do that to themselves.
You can't really blame the tools like spell checkers and calculators for students' inability to spell or do math. Spell checkers are there because people misspell words, and calculators are there because people don't know how to do math. The existence of these tools are a symptom of the problems people have anyway. And assuming the ultimate goal is to be able to type a readable paper or arrive at a correct answer, the use of common tools to arrive at those answers is not a problem.
Since spell checkers and calculators are tools that are widely available in the post-education world where students apply the skills they learn in school, it doesn't seem like a problem that their education teaches them to make the best use of the tools available.
Since spell checkers and calculators are tools that are widely available in the post-education world where students apply the skills they learn in school, it doesn't seem like a problem that their education teaches them to make the best use of the tools available.
Laziness, begets inventiveness (I should use that as my quote.) The issue here Shadow is that on average the standard of education is falling. And the reason is that people (children and teenagers especially who know how to use the technology) are able to get away with elementary mistakes, that show up clear as day when those technological aids are removed. Why nut it out when I can use a calculator? Or Why look it up in a dictionary when I can use the spell check
For example: you have less than 2 seconds to come up with the answer to this maths equation 13x17. This was a question I received in a job interview with the Australian Defence Force, along with many others. The answer is twohundredandtwentyone. This kind of speed and accuracy maths testing has somewhat gone buy the wayside.
P.S: sorry about my spelling of individual
make sure you say "Laziness begets inventiveness." you can't separate a subject and a verb in a sentence except by some kind of parenthesis (like an appositive).
i know that computers make people lazy in the sense that people (quite stupidly) take advantage of those technologies to forego knowing even the most basic things (like spelling a word like "individual" or "by,"
or some truly basic ones like "maybe" [NOT mabey] or even "truly" [NOT truely]). the problem is not with the spellchecker, though. it's the state of mind. you don't NEED to look up every word you can't spell--you can take advantage of the spellchecker and still learn it. the problem is that students don't read over what they write after they write it. they make the mistake and it gets corrected and they don't give a s**t. is the problem that student's aren't learning and it's getting fixed anyway? NO! i submit to you that students wouldn't give a s**t even if their idiotic mistakes weren't corrected. people still write like crap on the computer with the spell checker and THEY DON'T CARE. bad spelling, if it were the only problem, could almost reasonably (though still wrongly) be blamed on technology. but no amount of technology can make you a truly good writer any more than the jane sheaffer method of essays can make you an effective essayist. people don't get their writing fixed by a computer in a holistic sense, and it still sucks like nothing else. the problem is not and cannot ever be the technology itself. that is a cop-out answer that seeks to blame anyone but those responsible.
as to math... FOIL makes any 2 digit and most 3 digit multiplications easily performed as a series of shamefully basic additions... you don't need to write anything out or do multiplication past 12*12 (the highest we usually go on the tables)
(10 + 7)(10 + 3)=100 + 70 + 30 + 21
can't do it in 2 seconds, 5 maybe....
i count at minimum two mistakes there. at least one of them i could say is grammatical, with the other being a typo.. along with (as someone pointed out) the acronym usage which to me, is lazy...
i'll agree that education in this country is bad and the importance placed on standardized tests is worsening things. but to try to draw much from the typing on these boards is a bit much... i will say though, that in general, people (ie, kids) spend more time instant messaging than talking or writing "formal" type stuff, and thus, they are more likely to at least forget some grammatical rules and such... when they type "ur" and "lol" all day, it's easy to see why they might fall into that during the course of more formal writings.
i'm done.
what grammatical error? i see some poor comma usage, come to that--is that what you're talking about? all i see is the typo.
now we are getting all technical.
just a question, to the original poster, how much leeway does your wife get when making the lesson plans
just a question, to the original poster, how much leeway does your wife get when making the lesson plans
god forbid we get technical and actually become better writers!Originally posted by virividox
now we are getting all technical.
Originally posted by shadowfax
1: make sure you say "Laziness begets inventiveness." you can't separate a subject and a verb in a sentence except by some kind of parenthesis (like an appositive).
2: i know that computers make people lazy in the sense that people (quite stupidly) take advantage of those technologies to forego knowing even the most basic things
3
4:as to math... FOIL makes any 2 digit and most 3 digit multiplications easily performed as a series of shamefully basic additions
(10 + 7)(10 + 3)=100 + 70 + 30 + 21
1: well yesI shouldn't have used the comer.
2: That's what I'm trying to get at.
3: "They Don't care," that's a really big issue that has to do with work ethic. And thus links with point 2. Also "Wrongly" is about the worst word in the english language, better to be replaced with "incorrectly."
4: I never thought of using FOIL in that mannor.
Hah! You think these boards are emblematic of the degeneration of our youth's communication skills? You should see some of the incoherent dribble on some of the other boards I've seen. If anything, this board gives weight to the observation that on average, Mac users are better educated.
Sample post (and never mind the content):
Yeah, no kidding. This is actually fairly coherent compared to some of what I've seen, frighteningly enough.
I once came across an article about a middle- or high-schooler who had complained to the school system about not being allowed to use AOL-speak in her essays. Makes you feel all warm inside, doesn't it?
Sample post (and never mind the content):
Yeah, no kidding. This is actually fairly coherent compared to some of what I've seen, frighteningly enough.
I once came across an article about a middle- or high-schooler who had complained to the school system about not being allowed to use AOL-speak in her essays. Makes you feel all warm inside, doesn't it?
One of these days, American English will split into two dialects -- one for the people that use AOL, and one for everybody else
.
Originally posted by shadowfax
god forbid we get technical and actually become better writers!
have you read a clockwork orange, a. burgess broke all the rules and made a great book.
but before you can break the rules you need to know them.
It's worth noting on the spelling issue that most of the literature assigned to high school students was written before there were any universally accepted standards for spelling. Prior to the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928, the spelling of words was quite subjective. In the original manuscripts of much 18th and 19th century literature, there are many words that are spelled several different ways even within one work. This is not to say that spelling isn't important -- society expects words to be spelled a certain way in formal writing, but different and inconsistent spellings in common culture have existed as long as the language has, and are the largest contributors to the evolution of the language.
well i meant using "its" instead of "it's"... which i see as grammatical, though i suppose it could in theory be a typo
the typo being "tehy" or whatever..
word
Re: Meye RANT on American edyoucayshun
i will be the first to admit that i am one of the worst offenders on the site...i rarely use caps and i fall into run on sentenes and use these stupid three dots...every now and then
but then again, i scored a 450 on my SAT in english and that is not very good at all...but i scored in the top 1 percent on the sat math portion, which explains why i am involved with computers, and not writing novels or teaching english in school
i could give all types of excuses for why i am such a poor speller and have horrendous sentence structure...and being good or bad at math has nothing to do with it...it comes down to me being lazy when i type and not at all concerned with choosing the best words to get my points across
Originally posted by kingjr3
So my wife is a teacher in IL and the state often applies pressures to sub-performing districts to drive up test scores or face some penalty (whatever that may be). So in order to do so, they often focus on subjects they know will be on the ISAT. I am sure other states have similar states have similar tests and mandates.
Unfortunately, this teaching style comes at a cost. It seems nowadays, that American's abilities to speak and spell is going to the sh!**er. I have helped my wife grade short essays and other papers from her 6th and 7th graders, and I must say it was an eye opening experience. The errors these kids are making wouldn't have allowed me to graduate....2nd grade!
Why the rant???
I'm a devoted Mac owner and fan and I visit this site often. After reading hundreds of the posts I realize how bad its getting. I'm not picking on anyone in particular, but it seems the spelling on this very site is especially horrendous! Granted quick typing causes some errors, but most of the errors are just unacceptable. I myself have made several grammatical and spelling errors in my posts, but I consider myself somewhat edu-ma-cated!
I understand that the community in this forum is international, but I am seeing people from the US misspelling EASY words! The best are the phoenetic spellings. I don't think I need to list them (as I don't want to single out anyone), as we all have seen them. You can almost figure out the age of some of the users of this site based on their grammar and spelling. Sometimes I will politely remind people how to use the english language, but most times I remain silent. Heck, Im sure someone may even find an error in this post
I can only think that with the advent of computers and technology and teachers now "teaching to the test", we are sacrificing our abilities to communicate effectively through words.
We, as Americans, seem to be falling more and more behind other countries with respect to education and this very forum is a living example.
Thoughts?
i will be the first to admit that i am one of the worst offenders on the site...i rarely use caps and i fall into run on sentenes and use these stupid three dots...every now and then
but then again, i scored a 450 on my SAT in english and that is not very good at all...but i scored in the top 1 percent on the sat math portion, which explains why i am involved with computers, and not writing novels or teaching english in school
i could give all types of excuses for why i am such a poor speller and have horrendous sentence structure...and being good or bad at math has nothing to do with it...it comes down to me being lazy when i type and not at all concerned with choosing the best words to get my points across
kingjr3 said:
Almost a year later, we (Americans) are still stupid...
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
An interesting and disturbing article.
If it's any consolation I have observed similar situations in the UK and Australia. In the UK a friend's daughters must go to a zoned high school that has one of the worst academic and behavioural records in the country. One daughter is handling it - so far - but the other is almost illiterate at 16.
In Australia my three children have attended a state primary school that appears to classify ALL kids as "average". One son has clinically measured learning difficulties, is physically and emotionally "young" for his age, and (even now at 13) has trouble reading texts suitable for seven year olds. Until his last year in primary school at age 12, he was classified as VERY slightly below average and "developing". When challenged, the teachers said it is their assessment and not negotiable. Not much help to my son as he is pushed inexorably through the high school sausage machine!
My younger son (now aged 9) reads and comprehends some adult books (most recently, biographies of Napoleon and Julius Caesar) as well as high school classics such as Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and some simple adult fiction (he is enjoying Boris Akunin's "Fandorin" books). The same school classes his reading ability as "average". When challenged the teacher said that he hadn't read more of the allocated age group books than other kids in the class (the number of books available is only a couple more than there are kids in the class so he had had little opportunity!). He had been borrowing books from higher grades. Of course those books were not in the syllabus for his grade so they were not assessed. Can't win.
My daughter (now aged 13) had been a bright and enthusiastic student until age 10. Then her enthusiasm died, she became indifferent about school, and did not focus. After she started high school we found out from the mother of her - then - classmate that her teacher at the time had been shouting at her and calling her "dumb". It is too late now, but even if we had known at the time, the school is run in such a way that we could not have done a thing. The principal avoids parents and parents' complaints.
Interestingly (and back to the article, finally) this is a rural school with a de facto monopoly. There are no local alternatives ... no competition ... and little objective involvement by the mandarins in the state's education department. It certainly sounds like some of the situations described in the article!
Sorry about the long post. As you might understand this is a topic that concerns me enormously.
If it's any consolation I have observed similar situations in the UK and Australia. In the UK a friend's daughters must go to a zoned high school that has one of the worst academic and behavioural records in the country. One daughter is handling it - so far - but the other is almost illiterate at 16.
In Australia my three children have attended a state primary school that appears to classify ALL kids as "average". One son has clinically measured learning difficulties, is physically and emotionally "young" for his age, and (even now at 13) has trouble reading texts suitable for seven year olds. Until his last year in primary school at age 12, he was classified as VERY slightly below average and "developing". When challenged, the teachers said it is their assessment and not negotiable. Not much help to my son as he is pushed inexorably through the high school sausage machine!
My younger son (now aged 9) reads and comprehends some adult books (most recently, biographies of Napoleon and Julius Caesar) as well as high school classics such as Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and some simple adult fiction (he is enjoying Boris Akunin's "Fandorin" books). The same school classes his reading ability as "average". When challenged the teacher said that he hadn't read more of the allocated age group books than other kids in the class (the number of books available is only a couple more than there are kids in the class so he had had little opportunity!). He had been borrowing books from higher grades. Of course those books were not in the syllabus for his grade so they were not assessed. Can't win.
My daughter (now aged 13) had been a bright and enthusiastic student until age 10. Then her enthusiasm died, she became indifferent about school, and did not focus. After she started high school we found out from the mother of her - then - classmate that her teacher at the time had been shouting at her and calling her "dumb". It is too late now, but even if we had known at the time, the school is run in such a way that we could not have done a thing. The principal avoids parents and parents' complaints.
Interestingly (and back to the article, finally) this is a rural school with a de facto monopoly. There are no local alternatives ... no competition ... and little objective involvement by the mandarins in the state's education department. It certainly sounds like some of the situations described in the article!
Sorry about the long post. As you might understand this is a topic that concerns me enormously.
I think the original poster makes a good point in saying that standardized tests oversimplify education and are often operate more as a distraction than the benchmark that they are intended to be. I disagree with the whole idea of this messageboard, spellcheckers, calculators, etc being the problem. These new technologies may provide a way for students to get through public schools (and life) without learning to properly spell, write or do math, but these techs aren't going to go away.
No matter how you cut the cookie, people are going to adapt the way they communicate to whatever means of communication they have available them. If the traditional english language isn't the most efficient way of communicating via the internet, instant messaging, text messaging and messageboards, then people aren't going to use the traditional english language there.
And indeed, this new style of slang - internet slang - is going to make it's way into schools. It should be noted that it is no different from the slang kids used on the street before the internet was around. So, if slang has always existed in one form or another, what is it about today's society that is causing the American school system to falter?
I can think of two factors:
The first is the cancerous growth of consumerism. Consumerism teaches all about the rewards and easy fixes in life. You can't sell hard work to people. What you can sell is this concept that action is no longer relevant, and that what's really important in terms of achieving and finding happiness, is buying more and more stuff. In other words, the idea of action and hard work has practically been erased from western societies' collective consciousness and has been replaced with the words, "buy more!!!!!". This idea penetrates deeper and deeper into each generation, as advertisements find ways to penetrate deeper and deeper into our lives. I mean, nowadays it's hard to look around and not see several ads trying to grab your attention and convince you that they are the simple answer to your problems.
The second factor I believe is a symptom of the first, but deserves independent comment. The standardized testing imposed upon public schools by nclb is a copout by the federal government in terms of education. It was Bush's way of trying to wipe his hands clean of the entire education question. He played the whole thing off like he was putting the onus on the schools - he "had provided adequate resources for success", now the schools had to perform. What ended up happening is exactly what the creator of this thread was talking about - teachers are being forced to focus on these BS exams instead of on what they know their students need. And think about it - what could be more of symbolic gesture that school is BS than your teacher more or less saying, "alright class, even though we were working on important stuff, we have to stop now and try to teach you strategies for this standardized test. You won't be able to use these strategies at all for the rest your life, but that's the way the school system works." I mean, no the teacher isn't going to be that blunt, but they are going to say something that suggests exactly that.
No matter how you cut the cookie, people are going to adapt the way they communicate to whatever means of communication they have available them. If the traditional english language isn't the most efficient way of communicating via the internet, instant messaging, text messaging and messageboards, then people aren't going to use the traditional english language there.
And indeed, this new style of slang - internet slang - is going to make it's way into schools. It should be noted that it is no different from the slang kids used on the street before the internet was around. So, if slang has always existed in one form or another, what is it about today's society that is causing the American school system to falter?
I can think of two factors:
The first is the cancerous growth of consumerism. Consumerism teaches all about the rewards and easy fixes in life. You can't sell hard work to people. What you can sell is this concept that action is no longer relevant, and that what's really important in terms of achieving and finding happiness, is buying more and more stuff. In other words, the idea of action and hard work has practically been erased from western societies' collective consciousness and has been replaced with the words, "buy more!!!!!". This idea penetrates deeper and deeper into each generation, as advertisements find ways to penetrate deeper and deeper into our lives. I mean, nowadays it's hard to look around and not see several ads trying to grab your attention and convince you that they are the simple answer to your problems.
The second factor I believe is a symptom of the first, but deserves independent comment. The standardized testing imposed upon public schools by nclb is a copout by the federal government in terms of education. It was Bush's way of trying to wipe his hands clean of the entire education question. He played the whole thing off like he was putting the onus on the schools - he "had provided adequate resources for success", now the schools had to perform. What ended up happening is exactly what the creator of this thread was talking about - teachers are being forced to focus on these BS exams instead of on what they know their students need. And think about it - what could be more of symbolic gesture that school is BS than your teacher more or less saying, "alright class, even though we were working on important stuff, we have to stop now and try to teach you strategies for this standardized test. You won't be able to use these strategies at all for the rest your life, but that's the way the school system works." I mean, no the teacher isn't going to be that blunt, but they are going to say something that suggests exactly that.
Another problem with the NCLB, is that it focuses on the "core" subjects - English, math, science, and probably something else that I'm forgetting. It doesn't provide much support for fine arts, where some students find great comfort which can keep them in school, and learning of the arts (visual, performance) can also help students learn better outside of those subjects.maxterpiece said:
Of course, there's also the part about it being horribly underfunded...
*I guarantee that any spelling and/or grammatical errors in this post are due to me posting at 5am.
kiwi-in-uk said:
Rural schools IMO, are some of the worst when it comes to educating students. There simply isn't the amount of students necessary to offer alternatives.
I disagree with the monopoly thrust of the article. The zoning and exclusionary aspects of many school districts in the US is right on though. Choice shouldn't include private schools (and mostly religious schools) but should include the opportunity to send your child to the best school in your community.
As far as NCLB, it's all a bunch of crap and just teaching kids rote memorization. What's the point?
coolsoldier said:
You raise an interesting point. I went to a Private (Christian) school for High School. Part of the reason that you learned more than your friends is that many private schools just don't have the facilities/faculty that are present in a public school. I went to a very small school; there were 24 students in my senior class. When I was a freshman, there were only about 12 seniors. There were 6 of us in my physics class and only 3 in my calculus class. Part of the problem is that there just aren't enough teachers to teach the subjects; there also aren't enough classrooms. My school only offered Spanish as a foreign language because they could only find someone to teach Spanish. Not only that, but due to the number of classrooms and faculty, each class was offered at only one time during the day. So I had to take a self-study Chemistry... yes, self-study. I had to rework my schedule around what classes were offered. I realize that there are much larger private schools which offer as much as a public school, but there are many more small private schools.
I think the reason that private schools perform "better" (because in some cases they do, and in some they don't) is that private schools don't necessarily have to adhere to the national/state standards. I never had to take an exit exam, or too many other standardized tests (I took the PSAT and some military placement test, along with the SAT). Therefore, the teachers were free to teach more "relevant" material (ie: teaching to learn, not teaching to pass a test). My english teacher (same one for 4 years) taught us grammar in great depth: to the point that we had to memorize everything from comma rules, to split infinitives, to dangling prepositions. At the end of every year, we would have to take a proofreading test covering all sorts of grammar, including the above mentioned items as well as misused words. He would allow you to make up to 5 mistakes on the test to pass (out of about 50 total mistakes). If you passed the test, you didn't have to take it again. If you didn't pass, you had to keep retaking the test until you did (including coming after school, after a certain number of in-class tests). It sucked, but I learned a lot, and I still remember many of the rules.
I don't agree with your "better students" argument. I will not say that there are as many incidents as in a public school, but there is a lot of stuff that goes on. For instance, there were a few fights at my school, and some people got kicked out of school for doing stupid stuff (like threatening to bring a gun to school and smoking pot at a school function). Kids will be kids, and will continue to do stupid stuff and be disruptive, but overall, I think that the discipline is better at a private school, because it is allowed to be.
My wife and I have discussed this in depth, and have decided that if it financially feasable, we will enroll our children in a private school.