Dead-ucation! from Freedomain Radio

Kids keep getting smarter. School stays as dumb as ever. References: http://www.fdrurl.com/odd

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• education
• school
• iq
• intelligence
• teachers
• adhd
• ocd
• odd

[Panpiper]

I successfully survived 'public' school, avoiding most of the propaganda and bullshit essentially by ignoring everything, daydreaming through classes (or reading my own choice of books) and never doing homework. I accidentally learned a tiny bit of arithmetic (division), everything else I know I learned outside of school. It was simply a waste of over a decade of my life. Of course my refusal to cooperate did have consequences and I am still paying for it, 30 years later.

[fumanchu1k]

Stef when did you join Blue Man Group? :D

[InContemplation]

I agree with most of what you say Stefan (given how I barely survived public schools), the problems arise when you find that the majority of people are largely incapable of homeschooling or unschooling, either due to work or lack of intellectual capability (usually both).

I think a liberal combination of unschooling (watch?v=axoJSMwoXn4&NR=1 ) and gamification in public schools, injected modern tech like kindles into the mix could radically improve education to incredible standards. Thoughts?

[mgore90]

The Prussians!; I knew it was them!

[brendansechter]

The cutting edge schools use whiteboards and markers. =)

[tekproxy]

@LostInFunk You're totally right about teachers caring. I have 4 friends that are teachers and I've spoken with many others. Not all of them have perfect knowledge of their field as a whole, just like no soldier is automatically a political expert about the war in iraq. The problem is that they don't control their classrooms and have to teach bullshit. The principal can't really help, his/her hands are tied, and the board can't really help. It's all controlled elsewhere instead of locally.

[tekproxy]

School took over a decade of my life away at gunpoint and I've spent years and dozens of books undoing all the bullshit they taught me, mostly about civics, politics and history. Hell, one of my favorite teachers that really loved science hated evolution so we didn't even learn that. I can recommend many books for anyone interested.

[LostInFunk]

Some interesting and valid points. However, I think you are being a little unfair to the majority of teachers. The majority are not evil, controlling tyrants. They simply do not realise or question the system they are perpetuating. They just believe that they are providing a rounded and valuable education, rather than a Government guided training. They want to do good things, but do not realise the reality of their situation. BTW I'm not a teacher.

[SororThothma]

I really have to fundamentally question the supposed rise of people's/children's IQs in the last 100 years. I say this because it is very possibly that the means of measuring intelligence has changed - and may quite possibly be quite inaccurate, and possibly even be corrupt.

Consider this: Would the citizens of 1858, via a measurement system devised by them, consider us of 2011 to be as "intelligent" as we have deemed ourselves to be? I doubt it.

[SororThothma]

@Panpiper I too am predominately self-educated, and have "paid" for it for the last 30 years (approx). Aside from copious amounts of empty, false, pseudo desirable luxuries and a toxic paradigm of consumerism - which is really all that mainstream life has to offer - I cannot see what I had to sacrifice. Those things, those illusions and lies, had to go by the wayside in order to perceive actuality more lucidly. And for all the hardship of so doing, it has been worth the effort completely.

[ShadowCrowX]

I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school and never once believed I really had. I consciously knew that my attention was easily diverted because school was MOTHERFUCKING BORING!!!

[modestymia]

I couldn't agree more. I was subject to violence when I was at school. I had special needs that made school very hard for me and I became suicidal as a result. Schools need to become more person-centred and teachers need to start listening to children.