Education for the people! (serious topic, no spam)

[Maharlika]

Interesting, fable...

[QUOTE=fable]What's good about it? It severely underpays the teaching profession, provides no review of teachers, employs out of date textebooks and media, encourages simple rote memorization of material and the complacent acceptance of all standards and "received wisdom." It discourages research, challenging of evidence, the development of logical skills and the emergence of talent. [/QUOTE]

...for a minute there I thought you were talking about the Thai educational system.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Maharlika]...for a minute there I thought you were talking about the Thai educational system. [/QUOTE]

I suspect, you sly fellow, you, that we're speaking about an internationally accepted norm. Sad, truly. Education used as a tool to train people to exist as technical achievers who never use their innate creativity or logical skills to challenge anything, or anyone.

[Ned Flanders]

I think another important facet of education of the globe's youth that has not been covered in the thread is parenting. Seems to me that parents who play a direct and close role in their childrens' upbringing will certainly drive home the point of the importance of education. That becomes increasingly difficult in this day and age where people are busier than ever, more homes have two working parents, and there is an ever rising number of single parent homes.

Chan posted earlier about a revamping of the educational system here in the U.S. where students would go to school full time/year round with sporadic breaks throughout the year. While the U.S. is no longer a primarily agricultural society, just because ''school's out for summer" doesn't mean parents cannot play a role in continuing education for their children during the summer months.

Media exposure and the speed which information travels certainly contributes to the believe what you see and read attitude. Classrooms are more congested these days, promoting less thought and more grind out the work in front of you. Political Correctness and censorship also play a role in cirriculum chosen for schools. I know I'm just throwing random thoughts out here but my time is short. I really need to get back to work.

One more thing, another point here that has been stressed is that education only exists to get you employed. This is also sad and while most of my post is in reference to children, they are not alone. I'm not really certain what to make of vocational schools because they only exist to get one employed. The cirriculum of a particular industry in such schools rarely focuses on the principals of the industry they are promoting or the industry's history. Rather, lemmings are shelling out $175-$200 per credit to learn the flavor of the month and the latest and greatest technology of a specified vocation in hopes they'll be employed somewhere. I know in a day and age where U.S. unemployment is rather high, pumping people through these schools seems defeatist and doesn't seem to adequately prepare it's students for much of anything. Not to mention they make no guarantee you'll find a job and the lenders who financed the 'education' will still be looking for theirs while you're out looking for yours.

[Maharlika]

On a serious note...

[QUOTE=fable]I suspect, you sly fellow, you, that we're speaking about an internationally accepted norm. Sad, truly. Education used as a tool to train people to exist as technical achievers who never use their innate creativity or logical skills to challenge anything, or anyone.[/QUOTE]

...I find it interesting that you and the others see the U.S. Education System the way I see the Thai version here...

...and to think that the Thais in general have this perception that American Education is superior over theirs.

@Ned: Exactly! I agree with you 120%! There is a need for reinforcement at home.

At times though, we get problems when there is conflict between what is taught at home and what is learned at school. We also have cases wherein the students will tell off outright to their parents that the teacher can never be wrong when there is inconsistencies/conflict between what the teachers say and what the parents would tell their kids.

[Chanak]

@Ned: Good post, Ned. Not bad for something you whipped up while slacking off on the job.

The media immersion children experience beginning at a very young age may have much to do with the current situation. Sadly, a good deal of this immersion is slick marketing aimed at arming kids with even slicker ways to liberate their parents of their hard-earned money (Barney, anyone?). Gone are the opportunities to play with a simple box and a few matchbox cars...and along with it imagination, and feeding the creative side. Whatever happened to Randolph Scott, and hours spent running around outside building forts and catching frogs, happened to the best of us.

@Mah - unfortunately, parents have only so much control these days over their children's education when they leave the house to attend school. Once upon a time, teachers would arrange to meet their student's parents at the beginning of the school year. Students who were dispruptive were removed from the ordinary classroom environment, and being suspended or expelled from school meant something. Now, I suppose disruptive students are more common, and being suspended or expelled isn't that big of a deal. Something at home isn't right, and something at school isn't right.

[Ned Flanders]

[QUOTE=Chanak
The media immersion children experience beginning at a very young age may have much to do with the current situation. [/QUOTE]

I'll agree if we couple this statement with the fact that parents have less time and/or choose to neglect talking with their children on what exactly they are exposed to via this media immersion. Not all children are going to inherently understand the underlying biases with which media outlets will report.

Sadly, a good deal of this immersion is slick marketing aimed at arming kids with even slicker ways to liberate their parents of their hard-earned money (Barney, anyone?).

I don't really know if this is any different from when I was a kid. I was a star wars freak way back when and the only way for me to obtain every last action figure and spaceship was via good grades and staying out of trouble in school and around the house. No spitballs, eating my peas and carrots, and doing my homework were the avenues to getting the TIE fighter or the X-wing. Are we to say the relationship today between parents and their children is different.

Gone are the opportunities to play with a simple box and a few matchbox cars...and along with it imagination, and feeding the creative side. Whatever happened to Randolph Scott, and hours spent running around outside building forts and catching frogs, happened to the best of us.

It would seem that video games can certainly curtail the development of imagination and it is video games that appear to be the main interest these days. Honestly, it drives me nuts to see a child playing with a gameboy and/or listening to tunes via headphones at a dinner table either in the home and definitely out in a restaurant. But again, I think reflects poorly on the parents. If such distant behavior is going to be tolerable with the family than I can see how it would transcend to a classroom. I can't really say though if my opinion here is with the majority or if I'm just getting old. Perhaps every generation sees the next as receiving poor education.

unfortunately, parents have only so much control these days over their children's education when they leave the house to attend school. Once upon a time, teachers would arrange to meet their student's parents at the beginning of the school year.

Ugh! The separation between home and school is discomforting and the concept of parents viewing school as a daycare facility is mind bending. If it comes down to parents being forced to volunteer some of their time to associate themselves and participate in school events, then so be it, I'm all for it. I can't really understand why a parent wouldn't be overly anxious to get involved. However, parent/teacher conferences still exist as far as my experience goes. Perhaps it isn't true in some schools or school districts. I don't understand why.

Students who were dispruptive were removed from the ordinary classroom environment, and being suspended or expelled from school meant something. Now, I suppose disruptive students are more common, and being suspended or expelled isn't that big of a deal.

Are disruptive students more common? What this thread really needs is more participation from our youngsters here at SYM who are still in school.

Note: to Chan, not picking on you at all here. Your post got me thinking about relating my childhood education and experiences to what we've been discussing here. It leads me down the road of believing things in schools aren't that different these days and that the congestion that is life places the concept of the family far lower on the totem pole of priorities than it should be. I'm not saying that most parents are bad, I believe most want the best for their children. Perhaps it is the concept of 'the best' that has become a little askew. Life moves pretty fast and it is tough being a parent these days. It's pretty easy to get so wrapped up in your work and all the other pressures in life and in so doing usually a time deficiency exists in spending time with the kids. It's easy to create a short term resolution by providing a new iPod or a new copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas but in the long run only compounds the problem which I believe leads to a lack of quality education and children's interest in school.

Man, I am getting old. See you all tomorrow when I slack at work to check back on the thread.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Ned Flanders]I don't really know if this is any different from when I was a kid. I was a star wars freak way back when and the only way for me to obtain every last action figure and spaceship was via good grades and staying out of trouble in school and around the house. No spitballs, eating my peas and carrots, and doing my homework were the avenues to getting the TIE fighter or the X-wing. Are we to say the relationship today between parents and their children is different.[/quote]

I suspect your situation was actually rather above the curve, @Ned. Most parents would simply acquire whatever their children wanted if it was easily affordable, while others (such as mine) would use verbal and physical abuse to get the child to stop making these requests. Of course, ideally, parents would sit down and explain as early as possible that the shows they were seeing were largely efforts to sell products. Contrary to popular belief, children are not without reasoning skills even at an early age. What they lack is experience and a skills to buffer emotional impulses. If they're not trained and/or given bad examples, they can grow into that very recent phenomenon, the chronic credit card abusers; at the very least, they will accept whatever they're told, and believe it. Whenever I see parents complaining about their children, I think quietly to myself, "Who are the older and more mature people in your household that determine at least the initial ground rules for everything?"

This isn't to say you're wrong about the way adolescents behave, or the way home behavior carries over into school, and vice versa. But it's the parents' responsibility to establish intimate, honest ties with their children from an early age on. In effect, parents must become good teachers to their children. If they don't, they simply become bad teachers.

It would seem that video games can certainly curtail the development of imagination and it is video games that appear to be the main interest these days. Honestly, it drives me nuts to see a child playing with a gameboy and/or listening to tunes via headphones at a dinner table either in the home and definitely out in a restaurant. But again, I think reflects poorly on the parents. If such distant behavior is going to be tolerable with the family than I can see how it would transcend to a classroom. I can't really say though if my opinion here is with the majority or if I'm just getting old. Perhaps every generation sees the next as receiving poor education.

The dinner table is in many cultures a place where a family "comes together," reinforces its ties, and considers the day's passage from a number of perspectives. Unfortunately, when parents are only interested in working and entertainment, genuine familial communication never becomes a norm they establish for their kids. Why should a child take off earphones at dinner, if their parents have no genuine interest in what they did that day, and will themselves go watch television as soon as dinner is over? The child who does this is making a kind of statement; it's up to the parents to supply not merely an alternative, but a reason for that alternative. Until school-based peer groups begin competing, parents set the standards of realworld conduct upon which children form their own patterns.

[giles337]

Students who were dispruptive were removed from the ordinary classroom environment, and being suspended or expelled from school meant something. Now, I suppose disruptive students are more common, and being suspended or expelled isn't that big of a deal.

Are disruptive students more common? What this thread really needs is more participation from our youngsters here at SYM who are still in school.


Another excellent point Ned. I think, while the number of disruptive students has increased only slightly, the law of diminishing returns, means threats of punishments, and indeed punishments themselves have been greatly devalued. Infact, two boys from my class were suspended for a day, and instead of seeing it as a punishment, they enjoyed it. They got a day of school, an as they were given the work to do for the day in advance, they finished that, and spent a day at home relaxing. And to be honest, the fact that a one day suspension is on your permanent record is likely to damage your chances for how many jobs exactly? So, maybe the reason for the increase in disruption, is due to the fact that punishment needs a re-think? Thoughts?

[Ned Flanders]

Instead of suspending from school for a day, disruptive students need to be brought into school for a saturday, sunday, or both.

When I was a student in grade/middle/high school, I didn't really have a fear of being suspended from school so much. It was the fact that it was inevitable my parents would find out. I never got to experience a suspension from school because of this. I got some saturday morning detentions which were no fun and usually met with hard labor at home for the day and/or weekend when the detention was complete. So this again brings me back to parenting, what do parents do these days when their children get suspended from school? Do they verbally scold their child and after mom and dad head to work, the kid has a day of vacation?

[Chanak]

@Ned: Good points. I see this as an interconnected, multilayered problem. Degeneration in one area leads to problems in another.

We're about the same age, or close enough anyway. I was a Star Wars freak as well. I saw it in the movie theater when it was originally released, and I had some of the action figures myself. I never realized my goal of possessing them all, but on occasion my parents would buy one or two for me. Yet you and I were coming up in the first generation that experienced video games (remember Atari?) in their childhood, whereas those before us only had pinball. More gadgets, more marketing. Also, VHS really hit it big when we were kids too (and Betamax tried and failed), so having movies at home was was much easier. We didn't have the internet and CDs yet, but those weren't far away.

I think our generation was really the first to taste the sort of media immersion kids experience now. It was more difficult (not impossible, but harder) for kids to tune out their parents 40 years ago, as opposed to now. And perhaps parents, as a whole, made more time for them. Certainly, it's proven that people must work more hours these days as opposed to 40 years ago, and this might contribute to the situation as much as media overflow.

Reading skills are terrible these days, but motor skills are highly developed. I think studies have established that gaming develops excellent hand-eye coordination. I was an Atari gamer from way back, and when I took tests to get a job at Lockheed Martin, I scored off the scale on their hand-eye and manual dexterity aptitude tests. Fortunately for me, however, I spent a great deal of time as a child reading books, so I did exceedingly well on the rest of their battery of aptitude tests, which apparently most applicants really stink at (only 20 out of 100 applicants ever go on to the interview stage).

Anyway, more to say, but I have to run to work. I think a combination of factors combine to produce the educational erosion here in the US. I certainly don't disagree with your points Ned. Perhaps what started rolling when you and I were kids has snowballed into something much larger.

[Vicsun]

not to press the 'kick the US button'...

On a related note, I was looking at some statistics and education seemed to be considered the least important issue (while moral values being the most important one) in the election. And when asked what the most important quality in a president is, only 7% answered 'intelligent' which makes it the least important quality, out of the ones asked.

I'm thoroughly shocked.

[frogus23]

I got a scholarship to go to an otherwise extremely expensive private school, which is fantastic and has education just right - but this can't be done without a lot of money and very progressive ideas.

There are two other models of schools in the UK: Public Schools (read [Definately-Not-For-The] Public Schools) and State Schools. Each fails to educate properly IMO.

Public Schools:
Do not teach kids anything outside of academia, and have a flagrant agenda. Public schools are the domain of the upper classes, breeding grounds for future Prime Ministers of England, where absolutely superannuated archaic values are embraced. Uniform, discipline, elitism, snobbery and repressed sexuality are values worn on their sleeves. These are more of conditioning centres than education centres (although of course one learns a lot academically at them).

State Schools:
Teach children to pass exams, and are performance, quota and statistics obsessed. Make no bones about explicitly teaching children half truths and even untruths (especially in such fields as Physics, istory, Economics) at young ages which they must memorise to pass their exams, only being able to find out the honest truth about subjects at more advanced levels or probably in university. State schools see pupils never as ends in themselves, and do not prize education or knowledge - they see students as a means to getting a grade to up their statistical report at the end of the year.
Therefore punshments and rewards are not issued with the intent of making children learn more (isn't a school a service to children?), but with the intention of de-individualising them, repressing inquisitiveness and malling them into the shape of an exam envelope.

As you may be able to tell, I am thoroughly disilluioned with education,and I think that state education is not well paid enough to be able to attract the right type of people, meaning that the teaching profession in the UK is by and large populated by rules-and-targets obsessed automata, as are most civil services now in this country.
'Public' education on the other hand is egregiously class-conscious and conservative in the worst way.

This is the bad side, but the trend of the institutions - the good sides are individual cases.

[Vicsun]

What about the private school you go to, Frogus? Why do you think it's better than public and state schools?

[frogus23]

Many reasons:

Staff: Are brilliantly trained and knowledgable, attracted by the better salaries than at a state school. Fair? I don't know. We call them by their first names, and for the reasons given below, they are more like friends than authorities.

Pupils: Have chosen to be there. State education is compulsory, so many kids don't want to be there. Many people are forced into public education by parents who think it will be improving or is fitting of their social status, so don't want to be there, and by and large the others want to be there because they see it as fitting of their status rather than because they really want to learn. On top of this, they and/or their families are (mostly) paying a lot for it - therefore pupils have no reason to rebel. There is no bullying, no arguing with teachers, no 'misbehaviour' whatsoever, for these reasons.

Rules: The rules are that you have to come to lessons, do your homework, and that you're not allowed to take drugs that affect your performance in lessons. However, these rules practically never need enforcement because (as I say, people all chose to be at my school rather than being forced) breaking them would be a waste of your own time and your parents money. The school requires nothing more of you than being educated.

Classes: Very small - I have 4 class groups, membership of each is: 4,4,4 and 1. This means that there is no exam obsession because there is plentiful time to cover the syllabus, and therefore that teachers are free to actually educate the kids in their field.

I think the school is ideal - but you can't do it unless you pay for it, or get a scholarship. I'm not trying to turn this into a private vs state school argument, just answering your question

[C Elegans]

You know the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." The same is true of Americans and education: you can try to give American children the best education possible, but you can't make them think.

If all of the surrounding cultural values condition people not to value education and knowledge, the horse will not drink even when lead to the water. The general anti-intellectualism in many Western societies makes education something neither parents nor kids value.

I don't think so, but I have a friend who has worked as a teacher in five different countries, she will know if any such studies have been conducted. What I do know is that in studies like TIMSS, where student's degree of knowledge is measured, Poland is by far the leading Western country. Considering Poland is a much poorer country than for instance the US, UK, Germany or Sweden, many in the educational field were shocked that the Polish students were so far ahead in these studies. I don't know how much Poland spend on education per capita in relationship to other areas, though.

I hope that some day, somebody publishes a good comparative study of instructional models and test results in Soviet vs post-Soviet era schools. It would be fascinating because the Soviet educational system (whatever else one may think of it) produced many of the world's finest scientists and artists in the 20th century. Was this due to oversight of the teaching process? Beter pay? A culture that had formerly lacked public schools, and never lost a respect for learning? A government that considered this a matter of patriotic pride, and getting one-up on "decadent teaching systems of the lax Western bourgeois culture"? Perhaps all of the above.

I think all of the above. Southern and Eastern Europe in general values knowledge and learning much more than North Western Europe, and being "intellectual" is a compliment, not an invective. I believe this is partly due to tradition, which has interacted with richness so that education is no longer needed to achive well socially and materially. Richness must not however necessarily lead to downgrading of education - look at Japan, for instance. Japan is always top 3 on international student knowledge studies like TIMSS, and education is very highly valued both socially and in terms of higher education = higher pay.

To my knowledge, there are no comparisons between Soviet-post Soviet educational systems, but anecdotal evidence certainly suggests the Soviet educational system has fallen with the communism. Two of my Russian friends are married to teachers, and what I hear from then is the same developement that Western Europe has gone through. Teachers wages are falling behind compared to other professions, which makes it a less attractive job for the younger generation. Young people want to work in business and industry and make money quickly, rather than spending many years at uni and looking forward to an insecure future with considerably lower pay than in the business world.

We certainly could. Minus the propaganda aspects, the Soviet model of education was probably the best that has existed on earth so far in terms of teaching people knowledge, and producing high quality science and art. I really hope the lession that can be learned from it, will not disappear into oblivion. It is also interesting to note, that contrary to Albania, a majority of Soviet citizens never believed in the propaganda that was fed them from their dictator government. This in itself might be an indication of a working educational system! I had a discussion with some of my Russian, American and Hungarian workmates at the lab, and the conclusion was (simplified) that everybody was astonished how well the US propagande machine works compared to the Soviet propaganda machine. Poll data posted elsewhere indicate that a majority of Americans believe what the Bush administration and the media tell them, whereas in the Soviet union, nobody believed it but they didn't dare to oppose and couldn't flee.

One of the best aspects with the Soviet system, was that it took care of the highly talented students without discriminating the less talented. This I really wish Sweden could learn something from. An erranous belief held by Swedish politicians is that supporting talented students is equal to discriminating students with learning disabilities, as if one had to exclude the other. This belief stems partly from the infamous Scandinavian law of Jante (Thou shalt not believe that thou art better or more worth than the next man), and partly from the idea that equality=conformity, equal opportunities in school means everybody should have exactly the same education regardless whether they want to become carpenters or philosophers.

Yes, I also believe this is the reason for the vast difference in attutude towards education in Asian versus Western families. In Sweden for instance, an unskilled manual labourer like a taxi or bus driver or a metro ticket seller, earns about the same as I do after 7,5 years university education, but they don't have any student's loans and they have not lost pension money due to many years at uni with no income. Thus, it is hardly surprising that most people prefer not to take a uni degree. The reason for this surprisingly low evaluation of high education, is that Sweden has a culture of believing the "intellectual elite" are happy people who have chosen their jobs, whereas manual workers are poor sods who needs financial compensation for their less personally satisfying jobs. This was true back in the 1930's, but today when all education is free and everybody has the right to take student's loans for 6 years full time, the need to compensate blue-collar workers may not be as urgent as in the old days. For the last 20 years, Swedish politicians have instead complained that there are too few academics in Sweden but the solution has been to finance smaller colleges and universities and encourage students to read short to medium long educational programs, which make the statistics for average education in the population look better, but is a total failure when it comes to result in the form of increased production of highly qualified work/services.

I think that's a similar problem as the US have. In Sweden, we have the opposite problem: whereas I think it's good that the mandatory primary schools (age 6-15) have as similar quality as possible, but it's a pity that there is nowhere to go for very talented students. High achievers will swiftly be understimulated and bored to tears and used as assistant teachers for low achievers. As I described above, in Sweden it's viewed as "elitist" to support the very talented; only those who are below average can get any kind of extra support.

[C Elegans]

Right now, I am in the smartest 7th grade class in my school and district. Nearly everyone in my class is always atleast day dreaming in our class, and yet when ever the teacher calls on us, we still know exactly what's going on, thus proving your first point about the smart kids.

I was in the same situation as you when I was your age, and I spent my schooldays coming extremely late, sleeping in class and critising the school systems. Without any effort at all and most hours of abscence in the entire school, I also had the best grades in my school. After primary school (I skipped grade 9 so I was one year younger than my classmates when I finished) I was so fed up so I didn't want to study at all.

My advice to you is that you keep up a decent level of challenges and stimulation by socialising with people who share your interests. By reading a lot and discussing with other people, you can get stimulation that school can't offer. I used to hang out with an older, very intellectual crowd, and that was my life line for stimulation.

I don't know why, but why do most Asian students (Indian, Bengali, Chinese, Phillipine (sorry i'm not sure how to spell it) etc.) do better than the average ordinary American student?

This is probably due to the cultural factors that Maharlika and others have described. Studies of American students, show that the Asian-American students consistently outperform the white Americans, Latinos and black Americans. This has also been correlated to parental encouragement and hours spent on homework. In short, Asian families value education higher, and thus they encourage their kids to study more.

Yes, I agree, the US is famous for it's efficient brain-drain strategies, and I don't view this as a bad thing in itself, but I do think other countries could learn a lot from the US when it comes to offering opportunities to the very best and using the skills these people have.

However, in the scientific world there has been some discussions regarding the US dependency of and efficiency in brain-draining other countries. Some think it has a negative effect on domestic educational politics, and that the government don't find it necessary to offer the best possible education to US kids since highly qualified and highly educated people can be imported from abroad.

Parental responsibility for education, or even encouragement for education, certainly cannot be taken for granted in contemporary Western society. On the contrary, I think it is of utter importance that school offer learning to all kids, since many will not get it at home. Increased parental responsibility for education would require increased reinforcement for education in the entire society, since otherwise, it will only lead to even greater clefts between children from more privileged homes and children from homes where the parents don't care, have social problems, etc.

The dinner table is in many cultures a place where a family "comes together," reinforces its ties, and considers the day's passage from a number of perspectives. Unfortunately, when parents are only interested in working and entertainment, genuine familial communication never becomes a norm they establish for their kids. Why should a child take off earphones at dinner, if their parents have no genuine interest in what they did that day, and will themselves go watch television as soon as dinner is over?

The social family structure has changed a lot. This is where I think the concept of a core family is really, really limiting. If neither of the parents have time, an aunt or a grandfather may have both time and energy to listen and engage, as you see for instance in Balkan family life.

A personal side note: When I was a kid, I always had a book with me wherever I went. I was not allowed to read at the dinner table, so I used to put a book up my shirt or something, and secretly open it beneath the table cloth. I thought my parents were fairly boring, they usually discussed very mundane things like economy, pieces of everyday gossip, who said what and the like. It took a while before they noticed (it also took a while before they noticed I read under my cover after bedtime, using a penlight) but they actually gave up and let me have my Dostoyevsky's and Zola's during dinner

[C Elegans]

[QUOTE=Chanak]Reading skills are terrible these days, but motor skills are highly developed. I think studies have established that gaming develops excellent hand-eye coordination.[/quote]

[quote="Vicsun]On a related note"]

It's amazing. And what on earth do they mean with "moral values"? The moral that allows you to invade other countries and torture their citizens?

In any case, your and Chanak's post above points at a fundamental question: what should be taught in primary/elementary school? What should the edcuation that is mandatory for everyone contain? And what should be the purpose?

A recent Swedish study of learning shows that Swedish primary school pupils have declined in Swedish language reading and writing skills, in maths and in chemistry, whereas they are much better in English and very good in media critisism (yes, that is a core subject in Sweden.) The minister of education immediately proclamied that Swedish schools must now give priority to maths, since highly skilled engineering and IT work requires maths skills. The interesting thing was that 5 maths professors from 5 of the biggest uni's here wrote a debate article in Sweden's largest newspaper as a reply to this. They claim (and I agree totally with them) that there is no point in teaching all kids some kind of medium advanced maths that they will never use. The average citizen needs very little maths in order to live his/her life and get a good job. Only those who choose to work in certain professions need advanced math skills, and that should be a specialisation you choose during secondary and tertiary education, it's far too advanced to be taught in primary school anyway. (Personally, I think it's excellent that Swedish kids improve in English and media critisism - this is far more important that chemistry and Swedish for most people.)

This is so symptomatic for the Swedish educational ideology. Everybody should be medium good at everything, regardless if it's useful or not in people's life, in further education and in finding a job. 90% of the population has a degree from secondary school, but only 13% has a university degree (about half of those have a Bachelor's level, half Master's or higher).

My personal opinion is that mandatory education should not only lead to the individual growing up and finding a job, but also offer pluralistic understanding of the world around us, development of critical, independant thinking that allows every individual to form his/her own opinions and also skills needed to function well in contemporary society (like foreign languages and multicultural competence). How is democracy supposed to work if people lack necessary background knowledge to take stance in complex issues, and instead become targets for media indoctrination and emotional arguments?

[giles337]

OK... slightly off topic, but CE's talk of university degrees led me onto this:

I assume most people on this board, are far above the common denominator. In other word you are all fairly, to extraordinarily (glances at CE, Fable, Von Dondu) intelligent people. However, I have, what i consider to be a bit of a controversial view on university education. While I belive higher education is a great idea, i personally don't like the idea of going into it soon after secondary school. I belive that what I would find most useful, is to finish secondary school, with good A level results, and get myself a decent job, possibly after some training (because, to be honest, how many jobs need degrees nowdays?) Then, later in life, I would attend university, get a degree, and enhance my carreer. I figure this would set me in good stead, and help be bypass student debt etc.

Would it work? I need help from you people wioth life experience!

[C Elegans]

Warning! Incredibly long off topic post! But at least I spam my own thread

[QUOTE=giles337]I belive that what I would find most useful, is to finish secondary school, with good A level results, and get myself a decent job, possibly after some training (because, to be honest, how many jobs need degrees nowdays?) Then, later in life, I would attend university, get a degree, and enhance my carreer. I figure this would set me in good stead, and help be bypass student debt etc.[/QUOTE]

First, let me state that I'm actually principally against the idea of being a student all your young life and then start working, but unfortunately in many countries, it severely decrease your value at the job market to take breaks in between edcuational steps and thus the cost of doing this is simply to big. In all Scandinavian countries though, the urban job market in well adjusted to an eduational system that allows breaks of several years, and to the increased demand for a flexible work force. So what I will say below is based on a job market that allows for this.

No matter how good your education is, being a student is still acting in a "training ground"-world. What you do have no real consquences; if you fail an exam you may be able to retake it later, and even if you don't, it still only has consequences for yourself, since your responsibilities are limited to yourself and possible a few fellow students. Also, university is excellent for basic knowledge and learning of strategies, but it is not the optimal environment for development of independent thinking. In short, what you learn at uni is quite limited. And aspects like personality development, multicultural experience and general widening of perspective, is outside the main scope for what uni teach you.

Choosing career and profession is a fundamental choice. We are going to spend half of our waking hours, all our adult life until old age, with working. It's as important as choice of partner, perhaps even more important, because a partner can be ditched if the relationship doesn't work out, it may have worse consequences to ditch your job. You can survive just fine being single, but you can't survive without a job. Besides, if you have a higher education you may have spend many years and a lot of money all in vain if you are not happy with your job. You very rarely find the optimal partner that will last you a lifetime, have only met people from your hometown and are 18-19 years old. In the same manner as broadning our frames of reference, life experience and trial-and-error will help us choose a better parter, it will also help us choose a better career. Work experience is crucial for our ability to decide what we want to spent our life doing. Socialisation and cooperation with people in different age groups and different backgrounds also helps. Developing personal integrity is crucial - it's not a coincidence that big corporations have made it a strategy to pick up young talented students and make them sign contracts before they have any other experience. Travelling to other cultures is the best eduation a young person can get, for those who can affort it, and it can also be combined with studying. We should remind ourselves that what we, as human beings, want to get out of our lives, is not necessarily 100% coinciding with being the totally perfect work unit for soceity.

So my advice for you is: unless you plan to work in some highly specific area where a couple of years "loss" makes your value at the job market decrease significantly, you should definitely take a break in your studies and start working if that is what you want to do. Just be sure that you use the experience well, learn and analyse what you think about things, and don't get yourself into the nasty trap of being dependant on a high income. Instead, live simple at about the same standard as you would as a student, and save money for travelling and/or future educational costs.

Let me tell you what I did: I had skipped one year of primary school, so I was 15 instead of 16 when I quit the mandatory education (and throughly fed up with school because I found it developed only my ability to behave like a foolish sheep, but that's another story). I wanted to become an artist. My grandfather who died when I was 12 and was the most important person in my childhood, was an artist. He taught me paint my first oil on canvas when I was 4. So I wanted to start art school. First however, I wanted to work for a while because I needed to be able to pay for a flat of my own (long story, family conflicts), so I managed to get a job as a costume designer for a theatre group. Excellent, I thought. The job was very flexible and allowed me to travel since work load was extremely uneven from period to period. After a little more than a year, I started art school. It took only one term before I realised that I was not meant to an artist at all. My committment was lacking and I felt no real drive - I was quite technically skilled as a painter and drawer since I was brought up with that, but technicall skill without content, even without feeling an urge to put a content there, is quite useless.
So I quit after 1 year and didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had got the taste of travelling, so I started taking lousy but well paid job in order to save money. I could have 2 or 3 jobs simultaneously for a few months in order to save up for my trips. I lived like a total bum, mixing travelling around the world with lousy jobs, ballet classes and reading everything I could find from porn novels to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Successively, my childhood dreams of becoming a scientist returned to me stronger and stronger, clearly reinforced by my travelling and my alpine climbing - like an urge for exploring the not known, that grew to a louder and louder noise in my ears. It only became silent as a struggled my way up on rocky walls and icy peaks, when life was reduced to merely surviving. I grew increasingly restless and I started taking greater and greater risks in my climbing.

When I was 21, I fell off a wall free climbing. I hurt my knees so I eventually had to quit both climbing and dancing. I thought "this is the point where I should start studying". I had already figured out I wanted to do physics, medicine or psychology. Since I hadn't gone through secondary school, I had to take exams as a privatist to get access to university edcuation. (In Sweden you can either take evening courses, or exams in order to become eligable to apply to uni if you missed secondary school). I ruled out physics because I wanted a combination between something that could give me ultimate satisfaction, and at the same time be of significant humanitarian value.
I took exams in 23 subjects and got the highest degree in everything (which I had to if I wanted to study medicine or psychology, doctor and psychologist are the most popular educations in Sweden.) The exams took 1,5 years, and in between the exam periods I continued to travel but I had to quit the serious climbing and start a softer variant. When I was finished I was 22 and still indecisive between psychology and medicine, so I started to visit people I knew (friend's parents and their workmates) who were kind enough to let me interview them and show me around at their workplaces I decided upon psychology because the focus of my interest was the brain, not the rest of the body (I took some medicine too, later).
Still, I feared the prospect of being tied to an education every day (save holidays) for five years, and being unsure of my ability to adapt to this life, I spent one more year on the road. I started uni when I was 24, an age when many people finish. I compressed 7,5 years of studying to 5 years by taking parallell courses, and I started working at a research lab about half-way through my education. Sure, I would have been a professor now I had started uni when I was 19, but I would also have been an entirely different person, a person I would have liked far less. And I am sure I would have been a less good scientist.

So, the aim of this long post is simply to demonstrate: my way from road bum to scientist at a world leading lab may have been long and windling, but I don't regret a second of it and also a less conventional ways may pay off equally good or even better in both life quality and career hierachy. Education is much more than university classes

[fable]

I belive that what I would find most useful, is to finish secondary school, with good A level results, and get myself a decent job, possibly after some training (because, to be honest, how many jobs need degrees nowdays?) Then, later in life, I would attend university, get a degree, and enhance my carreer. I figure this would set me in good stead, and help be bypass student debt etc.

Would it work? I need help from you people wioth life experience!

Giles, I don't see any reason why it couldn't work for you. At issue isn't the path you take after secondary school: 1) a job, with college later; 2) college now, a job later; or 3) bumming around, and doing either college or a job, later. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and these have to do with a host of variables involving such things as your culture, your support group, your opportunities for each, your personality.

The question as I see it is how you can squeeze the most out of the path you choose. Invest it, whichever you pick, with energy. Scope out the possibilities. If it's a job, observe the unspoken rules of the workplace, the way people relate to one another. See them afterhours. Find out their expectations from life. If it's university, find a happy medium between social and work activities, one that involves more than just partying and book memorization: the two worst deadends the college experience can offer.

And if it's bumming around, don't vegetate. Go places, see things, meet people. Watch them, listen to them, and see how they relate to everything and everyone around themselves. All of this is grist for life experience. (It's also a typical writer mentality at work, but hey, I think I'm pretty damn universal. )

One caveat: while you can get a job before going to university, that work experience will probably be in a different field than whatever you pursue with a degree. And even if it is nominally related, the two jobs will most likely be in such distinct fields and environments that this tenuous connection will amount to nothing. This probably means that whatever time you've spent previously at a job will be wasted. Or not. From an objective, moving along a linear career prospective, it will be time spent in limbo. From a personal perspective, it may provide insights about how people function together at the workplace, and what you can expect to find once you join the so-called "real world." Whatever you decide, in other words, make it count for you.