> Man, everybody from Christian homeschoolers to anarchists have to kick
> the public school system in the balls! Let me ask this: if the schools
> are so effectively crushing the impulse to learn, why are college and
> high school completion rates significantly higher today than in the
> past? Why is performance on standardized IQ tests higher today than in
> the past? Why are a higher proportion people achieving professional and
> graduate degrees than in the past? If the purpose of schools is to
> crush the capacity to learn, schools are a miserable failure.
I do have some sympathy for public schools given what the conservatives are doing in terms of privatization and vouchers. But that's a sympathy score of "5" on a scale of 1 to 100. Most schools should be abolished, because they simply don't encourage young people to educate themselves. Schools should also be abolished for a variety of other reasons, ranging from their prison-like architecture to their inability to teach childred mathematics.
It's pretty easy for me to answer your questions. Your questions address the fact that schools are pretty good at teaching children to take tests. If you are a student who does well on tests and who can sit sit for 18 fucking years (and more if you add in university), you can work your way through the system. High school completion rates probably have nothing to do with learning, other than learning how to survive the current schooling practices. I believe there has been plenty of criticism of how schools currently spend so much time "teaching to the test," which has been exacerbated by the "No Child Left Behind Act."
You are also conflating the degree rates with the amount of learning that young people are doing. Of course, they are learning something, but higher education is like elementary and secondary education in that it promotes test-takers, uncritical thinkers, and obedient slaves who can sit still long enough to graduate.
I don't want to generalize from my university experience, but I found tons of incompetent professors and stupid classes through out college. Graduate school was even worse, but that may have more to do with the stupidity of Library Science programs more than anything else. I remember my graduate education at the University of Wisconsin as involving classes that taught schoolteachers how to use Wordperfect (which the school called "Automation" class) and me doing crossword puzzles in a bibliographic instruction class taught by a demented, dancing troll.
Schools are a complete failure when it comes to teaching young people how to learn and how to think critically. One only needs to point to contemporary American politics and religion for a concrete example of hundred of millions of stupid Americans. You have millions of Americans who still support Bush and the Iraq War despite tons of evidence damning both the president and his war. You have millions of Americans who are under the illusion that the Democrats are an alternative. Indeed, many of these people are college-educated liberals who subscribe to the unfounded belief system that the Democrats help people.
And then you have the fact that many, many Americans believe in imaginary dieties and spitis and angels. That's a pretty damning indictment of the U.S. education system.
> For a variety of reasons I'm not going to go into here, my wife is
> homeschooling my 8-year old son. I have to tell you that the whole
> notion that children will just "learn on their own" is a fairy tale.
> It's hard work to teach and it's hard work to learn. Without adequate
> guidance from somebody with a coherent lesson plan, the typical child is
> not going to learn how to do math or read. With respect to academic
> skills, yes, a young child is pretty much an empty vessel, and it will
> take a lot of hard work on the part of the kid, the teacher, and the
> family to help the child learn. I don't see this as lack of respect for
> the child; it's an inevitable result of the difference in knowledge
> between the child and the adult. --And in two senses: the content,
> obviously, but also effective methods for learning the content.
> Miles
I agree with you that children need guidance in order to learn many things, but that doesn't require a school--as they are currently organized--in order to teach them. There are many alternatives out there.
I'd like my money back from having to sit through 20 years of atrocious schooling.
Chuck