Education Part ll

[JOEBIALEK]

This is the second part to an earlier writing about education in the United States. As you may recall, I advocated for the privatization of all schools from kindergarten to graduate studies. This piece will focus on the curriculum that needs to be followed.

Everytime I encounter someone in the workplace, I am reminded of just how much we have failed to properly educate United States citizens in the fundamentals of communication: reading, writing and speaking. Few would argue that the time is long overdue for the United States to "get back to the basics" of a fully functional education system. We need to exclusively focus on the development of communication skills from kindergarten to eighth grade along with annual testing that measures apptitude and interest. Training in mathematics should be limited to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Unless communication skills are fully mastered, there is no need to advance to high school.

For those who graduate to high school, the emphasis could evolve into a curriculum of philosophy, sociology, economics, psychology, science and religious studies. Books such as "For Dummies" and "The Complete Idiot's Guide" could be used to foster an understanding of different religions. Athletic activity would be strictly confined to cardio vascular exercises and all sports would be eliminated. While there would still be an emphasis on communication skills, the focus would now be on developing a foundation of basic knowledge so as to be able to graduate to college. Testing for apptitude and interest would continue through high school increasing the chances of picking the right field of study . Those not continuing on to college would enter some type of apprenticeship training for the purpose of learning a trade. For those who do graduate to college, the student would continue to study an advanced version of the same curriculum as high school but only for the first two years then they would complete their education by strictly focusing on coursework designed to train them in their field of study. Nearing graduation, internships would be required to begin the transition to the working world. Think of how different our society would be if our education system could just teach the fundamentals of reading, writing and speaking.

[vertigo]

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll ask how to cook it. This is the unfortunate truth, and it is why skills-based training doesn't work. The role of education is to teach individuals metaskills, to enable them to pursue any skill afterwards.

Allow me to use programming as an example. Being a programmer is more than using a programming language, there is a mindset one must acquire. In any good programming course, not that much time is spent programming. One learns about algorithms, project management, user interface design, the roles of IS's in business, etc. Using the language is a small part of what one learns. The purpose of a programming course is to enable one to pursue any language, and really to have a language-neutral mindset.

In the same way, learning communication should not only focus on the semantics and grammar of a language, it should deal with topics such as modes of address (formal, informal, colloquial)and should familiarise one with all uses of such language, such as poetry and short stories/novellas, log book entries, commentaries, etc. It should focus more on what purpose language serves than the particulars of the language.

Focussing education on skills will do a tremendous disservice to those being educated. The pupils need an understanding of how these technologies are used to bring about results, what purpose they serve, more than how to use them.

Here are my ideas about what subjects are good for students to learn. I went to a technical high school, where I did technical drawing. It was much more involved than the drawings most academic schools do. I thought it was a very good subject indeed, and really should be taught in all schools. The reason technical drawing is so good is because in any given question there is a method to be followed, but the marks for one's work do not depend on the answer alone. To do well in technical drawing, one needs to know the method but also how to apply that method with finesse. To score highly, the drawing must be precisely correct, must be neat, etc. One's lines must not be smudgy.

Even in a high pressure exam scenario, one needs a cool head and a methodical approach to succeed well. Being able to act coolly under pressure, and to apply a method time and time again with finesse, is such a vital skill everybody should learn it. If I was an education minister, I would push for technical drawing to be a required subject.

Science and maths are important to develop logic skills, and to teach that the world acts in predictable ways. Also, maths is implicit in every branch of science. To do science, one needs maths, and the scientific method is how knowledge is acquired. Science and maths should be required, at least to some degree. I would like to see a more complete presentation of maths, with more set theory involved. Graphs are important in science, so really in maths one needs to know about functions/relations, etc. The set theory side should be included, so that one really feels one understands what it is about.

I agree that sport is overplayed in schools typically, in that sometimes pupils who do well in sport are under less pressure to perform academically. Exercise is important, but physical education (that is, how exercise should be carried out) should go hand in hand with health education, which would be about why exercise is important, why one needs a good diet, etc. The health classes I had were about how the body worked, but not so much what one need do to look after it. There was not a link between the health classes and PE classes. I don't think sport is a bad thing if it is voluntary and does not give learners an excuse not to perform academically.

In a nutshell, education must focus on the 'why' more than the 'how'. Focussing education on the 'how' will do a disservice to our learners. We need metaskills to do well in society, knowing not only how to speak the language but what it is used for, knowing not only how the human body works but what one need do to look after it, knowing not only how the world works but how one learns about the world.