Okay, so school turns you into a mindless slave, huh? Wait, what?!

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When you thought things couldn't get more strange... Your thoughts?
The public education system is certainly flawed, but last I checked, people are free to go above and beyond basic school curricula to learn whatever it is they wish. Especially now, in the digital age of freely available information across the world wide web, it's just that most people... Choose not to. :ferret:
 
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Stay away from this part of the internet. It'll eat at your brain.
 
I kind of have to agree with some of what was said to a degree. However, that's where it's up to the parents to get involved.

I went to a high school where there was training for the outside world. Everyone had their 'trade' to learn, from nursing, to programming, computer graphics to accounting. Each student, when they graduated, had the requirements for an entry level job in their chosen field, and it was up to them to continue their education. That being said, at the time I went to school my school was one of the few schools like this.

Now things have changed a great deal, and more and more high schools are joining in on this idea.

However, that does not mean that all schools teach what is required to survive on your own. I did not learn how to balance a check book in school (Although it's fairly common sense!) As for changing a tire or planting a garden? Again, this was not something I learned in school, but it's really not that hard to have someone teach you, and most parents will teach these things to their children. That leads me to question the parents of these children. Who lets their child get their license and doesn't show them how to change a tire, or check the oil? That is not the school's responsibility.

Schools are there to teach the basics, along with help prepare them for what it will be like to have a job. What do people do when they're employed? The same thing they do in school! They wake up early to get to that job on time, they listen to what their bosses say without being disrespectful, and they do what they are told. The basics are the same, it's the details that are different.
 
Oh, one of *these* vids.

One that goes "Because the school system is flawed, it must be simply trying to program us".
I mean I'll be the first to agree that school boards can be pretty ignorant, clueless and generally hopeless.
And I'd also be the first to admit skepticism at the integrity of college/universities considering they are a business, not a government funded education service.

But to suggest it's designed/purposed for mental in-slavement?
That's going into Tin Foil hat conspiracy territory.
 
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Oh good lord. This sounds like something the Global Federation from the Christ Clone Trilogy or the villains of my Xeria setting would say. No really, I've gotta write this stuff down.

Anyways, the usefulness of a high-school education is actually provable. People with educations tend to be wealthier than those without. Does it train us to be subservient? Possibly. But having a "job" means you have to be subservient to someone. There is no escaping this. Even the CEO is subservient to the customers.

As for school, I actually have basically the opposite complaint: Schools need to stay in their "box", which is to teach facts and make sure we've learned them. It's parents that are supposed to teach things like "how to cook a healthy meal" and "how to get along with others". I feel as though schools are trying to replace parents in this manner.
 
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

that is my only response to that absolute bullshit

Look, school is an academic institution. It's not designed to teach you how to "survive on your own", and that's fine. You should be learning that shit at home; by the time I was in my last year of school I was cooking dinner and taking care of large sections of the housework, and had learned what I needed to know to get by, particularly with the aid of the internet.

The responsibility of school isn't to teach you everything you need to know about life. This video complains that it's just about the state trying to control us and that it doesn't teach us anything, while simultaneously acting as if somehow it's the responsibility of this institution to take over the job of parenting from the actual parents. Your parents should be the ones who teach you life skills, that isn't what school is for, and of course if that's the way you think about schools you're gonna get people with no life skills. They aren't a babysitting institution.

School is, as an academic institution, aiming to introduce you to a broad range of fields so that you can further pursue your interests past the end of school. It gives you a taste, and it's your responsibility to pursue it past that point, either by studying yourself, or going to college, or whatever you need to achieve competence in that field. Although I feel the "barely qualified to flip burgers" part is exaggerated, I don't see what more people expect - if you never bother to learn anything other than what it spoonfed to you for free, then what do you expect? To attain competence in anything you have to work hard and study yourself, and it isn't reasonable to criticise the state or your school if you never do or learn anything for yourself, whether those things be academic or practical.

This is just a refutation of the utter crap in that video; I certainly feel there are severe issues with the school system here in the UK and the one in the US, and that they should be reformed. But not for the reasons stated in that video. That was laughable horseshit, imo.
 
As for school, I actually have basically the opposite complaint: Schools need to stay in their "box", which is to teach facts and make sure we've learned them. It's parents that are supposed to teach things like "how to cook a healthy meal" and "how to get along with others". I feel as though schools are trying to replace parents in this manner.
Agreed, mostly. The only difference is I would be far more concerned about schools unintentionally proliferating political or sociological ideologies in any manner outside of mere fact of their existence, rather than say that there are duties only parents can fulfill beyond love and affection. It's not the job of public education to tell you what to believe or even how to think: Just the basic set of skills to survive.

Which, I'd argue, does actually include basic personal finance now, seeing as how the majority of Americans don't seem capable of balancing their own checkbooks. Failure of the parents? Possibly. Necessary to the survival of the individual and the society around them? Most definitely.
 
There's also the matter of not all parents are actually good parents.
If there's something we expect parents to teach instead of the school, there will be families where the parent drops the ball and the child suffers as a result.
 
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There's also the matter of not all parents are actually good parents.
If there's something we expect parents to teach instead of the school, they will be families where the parent drops the ball and the child suffers as a result.

My thoughts exactly while reading this whole discussion.

There are a lot of areas that a lot of parents just wouldn't be competent enough in to teach their kids (not to mention the parents that just don't care). And then there are parents that just might be... busy. Hell, honestly I feel like my parents have such packed schedules sometimes (not to mention so many things stressing them out) that I hardly ever want to burden them with my own problems. They certainly don't have time to become my personal tutors on subjects that could just as easily be given a much more in-depth explanation in a school environment. And I'm lucky in the sense that I at least have two parents in the house; kids of single parents would be much more disadvantaged in this regard, for a whole bunch of reasons.

I'm not saying that schools should do everything that parents should do -- but there are a lot of life-skill-related things that they might be a bit more well-suited to teach, and that they should at least touch on so that every kid has at least something to go off of when their parents can't teach them with the same level of quality.
 
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Agreed, mostly. The only difference is I would be far more concerned about schools unintentionally proliferating political or sociological ideologies in any manner outside of mere fact of their existence, rather than say that there are duties only parents can fulfill beyond love and affection. It's not the job of public education to tell you what to believe or even how to think: Just the basic set of skills to survive.

Which, I'd argue, does actually include basic personal finance now, seeing as how the majority of Americans don't seem capable of balancing their own checkbooks. Failure of the parents? Possibly. Necessary to the survival of the individual and the society around them? Most definitely.

I would, also, fear the government using education as an indoctrination tool. To an extent, anyways. Unless things go real south, the government probably won't intentionally turn schools into propaganda machines. However, people's decisions and judgement to decide what's unbiased is affected by our biases. In fact, it can even twist the knife even deeper. For example "This is an unbiased statement. Anyone who states anything to the contrary is trying to brainwash you. If you were thinking for yourself, you would agree with me".

As for balancing a checkbook, that's a reasonable skill to teach someone. Math class could consider teaching it.

And actually, schools do teach how to cook healthy meals. Health class, and Home ec.
 
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My thoughts exactly while reading this whole discussion.

There are a lot of areas that a lot of parents just wouldn't be competent enough in to teach their kids (not to mention the parents that just don't care). And then there are parents that just might be... busy. Hell, honestly I feel like my parents have such packed schedules sometimes (not to mention so many things stressing them out) that I hardly ever want to burden them with my own problems. They certainly don't have time to become my personal tutors on subjects that could just as easily be given a much more in-depth explanation in a school environment. And I'm lucky in the sense that I at least have two parents in the house; kids of single parents would be much more disadvantaged in this regard, for a whole bunch of reasons.

I'm not saying that schools should do everything that parents should do -- but there are a lot of life-skill-related things that they might be a bit more well-suited to teach, and that they should at least touch on so that every kid has at least something to go off of when their parents can't teach them with the same level of quality.
Those too, I forgot about the fact that good parents might also be in situations leaving them unable to teach certain things.
And actually, schools do teach how to cook healthy meals. Health class, and Home ec.
Mine did as electives, but not as a mandatory class.
 
Schools in general do teach you a basic set of skills, it's just that the system isn't perfect. There's not enough teachers, there are too many kids per teacher, not enough incentive to become one etc.

That's just on the teacher-front. The video is amusing bullshit though.
 
I would argue another problem with education is that teaching isn't a competitive enough position, and it's too hard to fire a teacher. So you get a lot of bad teachers who you can't fire, and nobody wants to replace them.
 
I would argue another problem with education is that teaching isn't a competitive enough position, and it's too hard to fire a teacher. So you get a lot of bad teachers who you can't fire, and nobody wants to replace them.
I would argue it's less about the competetiveness as it is lucrativeness. Teachers are hardly highly paid, despite filling one of our most needed parts of society. Competetion within the proffesion might be good to some extent, but over here we allready have the problem of rival schools and teachers bungling grading to appear better.
 
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Seriously though. As a future educator this video baffled my brain. Reading through the comments after I was stunned by it. Many of those people who commented are parents and part of me wonders if they had a bad experience at school and that's why they believe all this shit.

This is why we need critical media literacy at all ages... *sigh*
 
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