Do our public schools need reform? In what way?

jallman said:

But see, thats the whole point...the kids get to be in charge of their own fates. Let them fall behind and into the back rows...eventually they will fall out of the academic track entirely and end up in some vocational training like I mentioned. It is not an innovative policy...in fact, many Catholic schools utilize just that kind of arrangement. Mine did and we out performed the public schools by far. It is sort of a sifting of the good students from the bad. I believe it would afford the good students a more peaceful and dedicated learning environment while filling the labor pool with self made grunts.

Click to expand...

With the punishments thing, I wasn't only talking about irresponsible students. When I was in middle school, I used to get picked on constantly by my peers. Everyone always says you should tell someone when that stuff happens, but the trouble is that when I went to the Guidance office about it, all that happened was the students in question got a nice little talking-to and then they were back out on the playground the next day, and chances are they were a little worse than before because now Ponygirl's a tattletale, too. Did they care what that little chat was supposed to be? Of course not! To them it was just a few minutes listening to someone blather on about the same stuff they'd been hearing for years.

Our current punishment system for schools is completely ineffective in ways that affect more than just the punished, and I don't think your plan would make it any better.

Lizai said:

With the punishments thing, I wasn't only talking about irresponsible students. When I was in middle school, I used to get picked on constantly by my peers. Everyone always says you should tell someone when that stuff happens, but the trouble is that when I went to the Guidance office about it, all that happened was the students in question got a nice little talking-to and then they were back out on the playground the next day, and chances are they were a little worse than before because now Ponygirl's a tattletale, too. Did they care what that little chat was supposed to be? Of course not! To them it was just a few minutes listening to someone blather on about the same stuff they'd been hearing for years.

Our current punishment system for schools is completely ineffective in ways that affect more than just the punished, and I don't think your plan would make it any better.

Click to expand...

I disagree. All this feel good, squishy, warm make the students feel better about themselves is just crap. Achievers achieve and losers lose when they are put into a system that does not accept failure. Socialization is a part of education and those who fail to adapt and those who are not resourceful enough to handle a social crisis will fall by the wayside. Eventually, as in by Graduation, a class of winners will be turned out into the world and the economy, work force, and social progression of the country will be better for it.

jallman said:

I disagree. All this feel good, squishy, warm make the students feel better about themselves is just crap. Achievers achieve and losers lose when they are put into a system that does not accept failure. Socialization is a part of education and those who fail to adapt and those who are not resourceful enough to handle a social crisis will fall by the wayside. Eventually, as in by Graduation, a class of winners will be turned out into the world and the economy, work force, and social progression of the country will be better for it.

Click to expand...

I think it's good, but one of things I remeber from being in school is that kids tend to crack under pressure even if they are extremely brilliant. A system like yours would be great except that it needs to be little less like a police state so that kids are able to understand and learn comfortably.

jallman said:

I disagree. All this feel good, squishy, warm make the students feel better about themselves is just crap. Achievers achieve and losers lose when they are put into a system that does not accept failure. Socialization is a part of education and those who fail to adapt and those who are not resourceful enough to handle a social crisis will fall by the wayside. Eventually, as in by Graduation, a class of winners will be turned out into the world and the economy, work force, and social progression of the country will be better for it.

Click to expand...

So what you're saying is that even a student who is brilliant at everything else should be allowed to "fall by the wayside" just because his or her one shortcoming happens to lie in the social aspect of life? What about the wonderful things that student may have had to offer our society? Now consider the punk bully who made it through school by ridiculing others to make him/herself feel better about his/her own perceived inadequacy. That bully may have nothing better to offer than the ability to burp the alphabet loudly enough so that the neighbors in the trailer park can hear. And yet this is the student who ought to be allowed to continue on?

So much for a better workforce.

Lizai said:

So what you're saying is that even a student who is brilliant at everything else should be allowed to "fall by the wayside" just because his or her one shortcoming happens to lie in the social aspect of life? What about the wonderful things that student may have had to offer our society? Now consider the punk bully who made it through school by ridiculing others to make him/herself feel better about his/her own perceived inadequacy. That bully may have nothing better to offer than the ability to burp the alphabet loudly enough so that the neighbors in the trailer park can hear. And yet this is the student who ought to be allowed to continue on?

So much for a better workforce.

Click to expand...

You misunderstand...the very student that you describe is the one who will get weeded out by his lack of performance. As I said, bullying should be a zero tolerance policy...in fact, the same juvenile criminal penalties that can apply for assault on campus should apply on campus also. If the brilliant student is not resourceful nor persistent enough to continue on under conditions which preclude his physical protection and further be watchful for any harassment, then something other than his intellect makes him defective for a full graduation. I am sure within five graduations of instituting such changes, there will be a sharp decline in the number of incidents of mental and behavioral causes for bad behavior. When you tell a student that his success depends on him, and then you make an example of the class preceding, I believe it is part the strength of human nature that this student will suck it up and rise to the challenge.

Bottom line, we are too soft on our students. Excuses have become the pillars of the incompetent and our economy, technology, art, and social progress are not going to be held up by excuses. Such...what was the word...draconian measures are needed to quickly undo the damage to our work ethic that we suffered under the baby boomers.

jallman said:

You misunderstand...the very student that you describe is the one who will get weeded out by his lack of performance. As I said, bullying should be a zero tolerance policy...in fact; the same juvenile criminal penalties that can apply for assault on campus should apply on campus also. If the brilliant student is not resourceful nor persistent enough to continue on under conditions which preclude his physical protection and further be watchful for any harassment, then something other than his intellect makes him defective for a full graduation. I am sure within five graduations of instituting such changes; there will be a sharp decline in the number of incidents of mental and behavioral causes for bad behavior. When you tell a student that his success depends on him, and then you make an example of the class preceding, I believe it is part the strength of human nature that this student will suck it up and rise to the challenge.

Bottom line, we are too soft on our students. Excuses have become the pillars of the incompetent and our economy, technology, art, and social progress are not going to be held up by excuses. Such...what was the word...draconian measures are needed to quickly undo the damage to our work ethic that we suffered under the baby boomers.

Click to expand...

I agree with all your points, and that last statement goes to the bottom of so many problems in this country (and around the world). Even I use excuses at times, though I try to avoid them....many of us probably do. It's so much easier to say "it's not my fault, it's (insert any excuse you have ever heard here) fault", than to accept that we made a mistake and have to fix it.

One example of this is the ADD that (supposedly) some children have. They give them drugs that harm more than they help, and tell them and their parents that it's not their fault they are doing bad, it's ADD. If there were teachers who taught their subject in an interesting way that got all or at least most of the students into it, got them involved, got them interested.......then no ADD. My opinion, I might be wrong about this.

jallman said:

You misunderstand...the very student that you describe is the one who will get weeded out by his lack of performance. As I said, bullying should be a zero tolerance policy...in fact, the same juvenile criminal penalties that can apply for assault on campus should apply on campus also. If the brilliant student is not resourceful nor persistent enough to continue on under conditions which preclude his physical protection and further be watchful for any harassment, then something other than his intellect makes him defective for a full graduation. I am sure within five graduations of instituting such changes, there will be a sharp decline in the number of incidents of mental and behavioral causes for bad behavior. When you tell a student that his success depends on him, and then you make an example of the class preceding, I believe it is part the strength of human nature that this student will suck it up and rise to the challenge.

Bottom line, we are too soft on our students. Excuses have become the pillars of the incompetent and our economy, technology, art, and social progress are not going to be held up by excuses. Such...what was the word...draconian measures are needed to quickly undo the damage to our work ethic that we suffered under the baby boomers.

Click to expand...

Hmm... you have a point there, actually. Oh oh oh -- could this possibly get rid of the emo kids?! I'm all for anything that does that!

But, um... what do the baby boomers have to do with anything?

I'm not sure if swearing is allowed, but i'm not sure if it is, I feel very strongly against many things in our schools system but i'll leave out the cursing.

1. All this equality stuff must STOP. We are already supposed to be equal. Small individual laws just make liberals laugh. Stop it already. Make federal laws.

2. The schools need to forget about this no child left behind stuff. It disallows the intelligent students to exceed to their full potential. I know this to be true, as the school I attend spends a large portion of their budget to meet mandates for special education. Their is only 1 AP class (Math) but they cut the college level math for the students in the AP math for their senior year so it defeats the purpose, they are almost to the point of cutting advanced languages, which I was hoping of taking in Spanish, my senior year. By trying to educated the ones that are challanged they are creating a system where you cannot succeed. FURTHERMORE THE FAMILY NETWORK IS CRUMBLING SO THAT THE PARENTS DON'T CARE. With no expectation, these children don't care either, and thus their is no benefits anyway. In my area especially, there are so many children, young children, that have parents that have been divorced many times, have syblings from the same mother but 4 or 5 differnt fathers, don't have parents that care enough to see that their children have a decent meal or good clothes for school, its terrible. I'm not saying womans rights were a good thing, but the days where mothers stayed in the homes and raised the children are gone, and its a terrible thing for society. In the years past, people were still needy but at least family was important to them along with the success of that family, and that alone made people strive to do better, and with that gone, the very structure of American freedom is being threatened, by laws that made her free, eventually are going to be the poison the brings here down, as each and every generation becomes worse and worse just because they have less care from their parents. I know all you liberals are going to jump on this claiming that I am saying that I think womens rights are a bad thing, that is not so. I am saying that after 2 or 3 generations of children having lowered expectations has now destroyed Americas future. Now, more and more people are just tyring to use public welfare to get by, and how to beat the system. # 2 has gotten a bit long.

3. Japan- Complete use of the education system to single out the best way to secure a better future. They take the brightest students and teach them how to be the buisness people and leaders. They take the ones that lack the brainpower or have mental issues and push them towards other goals such as become tradespeople, because they simply cannot achive higher goals.

4. Our president has no brain. I don't know where it went. I simply think the last presidential election was a lose-lose situation. John Kerry was to socialistic, and even though i approve of socialism, this country won't work with it, and I think would have done a bad job as president, and we know what Bush has done, passed some bad laws and drained our economy. This really doesnt have anything to do with school, but prevents it from getting better. The "No Child Left Behind" policy is a terrible burden on our public schools in more middle class areas (most of the nation) . The big developments and multi hundred thousand home doesnt cut it. Rural America

Jerm said:

and even though i approve of socialism, this country won't work with it

Click to expand...

Why wouldn't it? Take a look at a thread I started under 'Political Platforms' Called 'The Ideal Nation' I could work, and well.

Che said:

Why wouldn't it? Take a look at a thread I started under 'Political Platforms' Called 'The Ideal Nation' I could work, and well.

Click to expand...

This country won't work with socialism because it's a free country. It's not right to steal from a man that works to pay for the support of men who won't.

What's socialism done for this country so far? Why, it's given each and every citizen a $28,000 debt to pay off, a debt that grows every day that socialism continues to grow in this country.

And naturally, this ever so obvious fact wouldn't stand if the US had an education system. I mean, how long would socialism last if more people would bother to get a simple calculator and figure out what their share of the costs for supporting the Oprah watchers is? But people in this country are just too stupid and lazy to do even that, so it's no wonder they like socialism.

Che said:

Why wouldn't it? Take a look at a thread I started under 'Political Platforms' Called 'The Ideal Nation'. It could work, and well.

Click to expand...

You believe that. I personally do not. That does not mean that you or I are correct.

Let me explain what I think socialism is, so that there is no misunderstanding.

I think that socialism is an idea for government in which all people would pay a large portion (or all) of their income to the government. The government would then distribute those monies to people who "needed" them. Such as people who were not as well off, people who could not provide for themselves.

IMO, this is a bad form of government. It causes some (but not all) of the people who pay a portion of their income to the government to become angry because they consider that money theirs, as they are the ones who have earned it. (See Scarecrow Akhbar) It also, at least IMO, causes some (but not all) of the people who are given this money to become lazy, unwilling to work, provide services to the rest of the population.......in short, they become something like the sand bags they use to keep hot air balloons at the right altitude.......without the sand bags, said balloons would keep gaining altitude (there are other factors involved, but you see my point).

This, IMO, is a factor that will cause our country many, many problems. Not major problems anytime soon, because we are a rich country.....but if the number of people who depend on the government grows, it is my opinion that eventually there will be more people depending on the government for their living than there will be those who actually work.

I'm not sure about this, but I think that the ultimate socialist government would have no money at all. Like the government of the Federation in Star Trek.

IMO, with no money (or something else maybe?) to provide incentive for people, there would be no real reason for them to learn, work, improve themselves......and then where would all the stuff that people use be produced?

I could be wrong about this. But it is also possible that the people who advocate socialist forms of government are wrong.

IMO, if there is someone who is able, but not willing to work, he/she should not be given anything. Hunger and the like should provide the incentive.


Note to Che: I did not read the thread you suggested, but will see about doing so shortly....who knows, I may change my point of view.