Here’s a video that will illuminate the conundrum that we’re in with respect to education.
93 responses to “Rethinking Education”
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Is it supposed to be some new breakthrough that we're over medicating kids on ADHD medication? As someone who has worked in a pharmacy for years, I can personally attest to this fact. I actually grew up in an area (Camp Hill, PA) where almost everyone you meet is on ADHD medication, ages 7-25. Why do we do this? I completely agree with the video, that, we are trying to stop kids from being natural, honestly, how can we expect anyone to pay attention to all that “boring” stuff? The correlation between ADHD and standardized testing blows me away however, after all, what do the majority of those tests accomplish? Aren't we simply teaching for the test rather then teaching comprehension?
Perhaps this desire for conformity causes more problems then it allievates.
I have to address more fully my feelings on his comments on how every country in the world is assessing how they do education. I almost wish he would take more out of “Fight Back!” (http://boingboing.net/2011/02/18/fight-back-a-radical.html) Because it really has a lot of good information to bring to the table on educational reform. (And what the “students”, or maybe more correctly, “the product” might be thinking.) I had never realized that concept though, that we really do “educate” children based on age more then anything else. Never having attending public school (having been homeschooled) is the excuse I shall hide behind here. I feel almost validated however in the fact that I have been saying for years that I wished we would educate children based on their interests and strong points, rather then just as a mass of product on an assembly line.
What an interesting experiment it would be if we were to grade a class as a whole, rather then the individuals. Grade simply on the work performed, and depend on some sort of social hierarchy to keep the group members in line. Based on my own experience of study groups and group projects at Penn State, this may or may not work. Maybe if we were to start with this kind of learning younger, before people became “educated” we would see a huge difference…
When artificial intelligence reaches a point where it can process and retain information much better than any human mind could, it will completely eliminate the need for any of the material that is taught in education today. What would be the jobs of specialists today will be run by computers, so where will all the jobs be for people? It will probably reach a point where a lot of the work we do today will be done automatically for us, and if this was so then there would be no need for an economy anymore, because all anyone would be responsible for is maintaining the robotic entities that would take care of everything else for them. With no regular occupations, people will be more free than ever before, but the price of this will be a need for better communication skills and a more cohesive society since human interaction, in whatever form that may be, will also be greater than ever before. This is the course that education needs to be headed on in order for a prosperous future.
I think the video does a good job of pointing out the fact that many people do not have a lot of interest in the subject matter they are taught in school, which leads to a lifelong disregard for learning. Hopefully there will be some new technological breakthrough to completely revolutionize learning, because it is not going in a good direction as the video suggested. It is so standardized now that the idea of a perfect student is not the one that is able to think of many questions and collaborate with other people, but one that can remember the information in the classroom the best for an exam. Having a 4.0 GPA is all well and good when it comes to looking for a job in today’s economy, but in the future it will not be as promising as you would like it to be. Every day we see stuff from science fiction become a reality, so it is safe to assume that one day there will be Artificial Intelligence that will make the “perfect student” of today obsolete. When artificial intelligence reaches a point where it can process and retain information much better than any human mind could, it will completely eliminate the need for any of the material that is taught in education today. What would be the jobs of specialists today will be run by computers, so where will all the jobs be for people? It will probably reach a point where a lot of the work we do today will be done automatically for us, and if this was so then there would be no need for an economy anymore, because all anyone would be responsible for is maintaining the robotic entities that would take care of everything else for them. With no regular occupations, people will be more free than ever before, but the price of this will be a need for better communication skills and a more cohesive society since human interaction, in whatever form that may be, will also be greater than ever before. This is the course that education needs to be headed on in order for a prosperous future.
The most interesting aspect of this video is how it really isolates the education system as a form of mass production of standardized individuals, and then uses the methods of standardization (such as GPA) to distinguish between individual abilities in a narrow focus. The education system is demonstrated as one where individuals are forced from a natural way of thinking into a form that fits in a standard box form. As people are introduced into the education system, everything about the process is standardized. Classrooms are set in a squared off room, students sit in square desks, graduate with square pieces of paper to eventually work in a cubicle where they grind out repetitive tasks and using the narrow amount of information that the education system determines has “value.”
This process robs creativity of many individuals, especially in the area of problem solving. The only area where creativity is acceptable and promoted is in art classes, in any level of the education system. These creative abilities are then stifled and not permitted in many other academic areas. The only time creative solutions are encouraged in mathematics and applied sciences is once students reach graduate level courses, which few individuals tend to pursue for a variety of reasons. This implies the idea that it is possible that many of the world’s most intelligent individuals may fall through the cracks of the system and not become leaders who can solve many of the new and pressing problems of today. Because of this system, individuals are pressured into following new ways that would only benefit themselves economically, rather than help find new solutions for society at large. This is ironic because it is society that has shaped this system, and now may be the one that suffers the consequences.
Another interesting aspect of the education system is the transition between it and employment. After experiencing many interviews and the various questions and qualifications that employers seek from applicants, I see a direct difference between the expectations of individuals and the way in which students have been accustomed to behave. All throughout school, the student emphasis has been on individual memorization of material and isolated work. Employers however request research abilities, leadership, and teamwork. These three are almost never encouraged in the education system, even though it is so emphasized in the workforce.
I think the video does a good job of pointing out the fact that many people do not have a lot of interest in the subject matter they are taught in school, which leads to a lifelong disregard for learning. Hopefully there will be some new technological breakthrough to completely revolutionize learning, because it is not going in a good direction as the video suggested. It is so standardized now that the idea of a perfect student is not the one that is able to think of many questions and collaborate with other people, but one that can remember the information in the classroom the best for an exam. Having a 4.0 GPA is all well and good when it comes to looking for a job in today’s economy, but in the future it will not be as promising as you would like it to be. Every day we see stuff from science fiction become a reality, so it is safe to assume that one day there will be Artificial Intelligence that will make the “perfect student” of today obsolete. When artificial intelligence reaches a point where it can process and retain information much better than any human mind could, it will completely eliminate the need for any of the material that is taught in education today. What would be the jobs of specialists today will be run by computers, so where will all the jobs be for people? It will probably reach a point where a lot of the work we do today will be done automatically for us, and if this was so then there would be no need for an economy anymore, because all anyone would be responsible for is maintaining the robotic entities that would take care of everything else for them. With no regular occupations, people will be more free than ever before, but the price of this will be a need for better communication skills and a more cohesive society since human interaction, in whatever form that may be, will also be greater than ever before. This is the course that education needs to be headed on in order for a prosperous future.
I think the video does a good job of pointing out the fact that many people do not have a lot of interest in the subject matter they are taught in school, which leads to a lifelong disregard for learning. Hopefully there will be some new technological breakthrough to completely revolutionize learning, because it is not going in a good direction as the video suggested. It is so standardized now that the idea of a perfect student is not the one that is able to think of many questions and collaborate with other people, but one that can remember the information in the classroom the best for an exam. Having a 4.0 GPA is all well and good when it comes to looking for a job in today’s economy, but in the future it will not be as promising as you would like it to be. Every day we see stuff from science fiction become a reality, so it is safe to assume that one day there will be Artificial Intelligence that will make the “perfect student” of today obsolete.
This video has so much in it that I have been recently thinking about. I just went through a period where nothing was feeling right to me. I started to question my life and most of all my education and why I was here at Penn State. I discovered in my questioning that it was because I have always been driven to believe that I NEED a degree to get a job. In a way I think this is true. It is not enough to just go straight to work after high school, although lots of people do. However, as an actor, no one cares what your degree is and where you got it, what matters is if you are talented and look right for the part. So, with this thought in mind I started to look into going to a school for two years that is a very specific training that would not give me a degree but would prepare me for auditioning and such. As much as I would LOVE to do that, my mind tells me that I shouldn’t because I will need a degree to get work that doesn’t involve acting. Ninety percent of actors are unemployed. This makes me want a degree because it would be easier to get that temp work.
My second thought was about if I needed a degree from Penn State. Why am I at this school specifically if what I want to do is just get a basic degree and train my craft? My answer to myself was because this is a reputable school. Having this name on your resume is a big deal. There is a very large base for networking and such. I just don’t think one can escape education in today’s day and age. If one wants to be “successful,” it is highly encouraged that one goes to college. This includes Grad school now too. It almost seems like having a Bachelors is equivalent to what a high school diploma was and a Masters is like what a Bachelors was. It is just so hard to escape the educational system! Even though I want to so much!
First of all I was amazed by the production of the video from the beginning and I would love to see how they made it. I never saw something like that before I thought it was good. And the narrator did a good job too. They are saying that there are two reasons for how education is influenced in the Unites States and how these two factors interact with each other. Economic and Cultural are the two factors and are the base for our educational system since it was constructed. How we educate our children in economical and cultural ways this question of how children are educated is a question that many countries are trying to answer so we can understand where education is going with time in the future. I don’t think that trying to understand how children are educating today is nothing the same as the past. In the past they used to go do well in school, work hard, get a college degree and get a job. Now the idea conformity, multidirectional, and plasticity are interacting to either change the ways in which people are acting and taking other paths or it takes one person in the family to stand up and take another way total different where the culture that was followed starts to break and start another way. Time changes and the customs were not going to be followed always. One thing that definitely has changed is technology. Technology has to do with the changes in how the education is structured. It was believed there were two groups of people smart and non-smart and I don’t believe in this at all. I believe that all students are smart they just have different level of learning. The way in which they make them take medications which is taking something away from them, they are many examples of how they can get distracted.
One think that also strike me was about how we students are separated depending on age. This factor has to deal a lot in the development of education. Being in a school year with kids which are almost one year younger or older than you (children who are born on September and before this month have to stay until the other school year) can influence a great deal of learning. One outcome of this age separation and gender is the results of the exams which tell the rated position they should be in. Overall this educational system has a lot to say and many factors that deal with how children are educated and changing the way they learn. This is something they cannot control but has to happen.
I feel that I have a very good insight into the education system. Not only have I been in school roughly 95% of my life but also my mother has been a teacher for 20 years. She agrees with this video. Our learning system is very inadequate for our country and what we want out of children. She is constantly complaining that she has to ‘teach to the test’. She feels that our current system of teaching is inadequate for children. Instead of being able to foster a joy for learning and tending to the needs of her class, she must teach in a factory way like one that was described in the video.
I have a friend who studies foreign relations in the military. He tells me constantly that the thing that separates American students from the rest of the world is that we don’t accept one answer. As Americans, it is our heritage to look outside the box and be industrious. We don’t accept the ‘one answer’ and we look for creative and alternative solutions to problems. I worry that we are losing that in education today. Thankfully I don’t feel that was suppressed in me because I went to a small, rural school where teachers could spend a little more time with me nurturing my individuality. I thank them endlessly for that. One the same hand, I know that not everyone was blessed as I was. Many kids were treated as a number and a statistic in school. America needs to drastically redo it’s schooling system.
One of the most fundamental problems in American schooling are numbers. I’m not talking about mathematics, I’m talking about the number of children, and students in this country. The ideal for education is for students to be taught on an individual level by a knowledgeable educator. But we can’t achieve that. So what is the solution? I feel that we need to hire more teachers and give them the latitude to teach to their class and not teach to a test. At a young age we need to foster individuality, creativity, and ingenuity. Once children are old enough, we can then begin to teach them in a more procedural way. But to do so at such a young age is a travesty.
I completely agree with this video about the educational system. Being that jobs are so specialized anymore, I think students are wasting their time getting an education, instead of focusing on their strengths. As a student, in today’s economy, it is a bleak outlook to think that a college degree may not be enough to get me a job. What am I doing wasting all of this time and exerting all of this energy to obtain a degree in some field that you may not even be interested in once you enter the work force? I feel in today’s society, young adults are more interested in the arts. Studying is just plain boring. We want to create something. We want to know we spent our time wisely and not with our face in a book to only take an exam that are beyond our comprehension anyways.
Music is more influential than ever with its young audience. The arts are a difficult field to pursue because the money that comes with it cannot afford an American living, for the most part. What I am saying is that there is more money in other fields of study. Money is the whole point of going to college. If I was not at college right now, I would be spending my time writing music, creating art, and traveling the world. I feel like my youth is being wasted away sitting around at the same college for five years. People just want excitement in life. We want to see what else is out there. We want a secular education, but only as a learning experience and not a tested institution where you are judged by how you comprehend rather than what influences you can take from the experience.
How can we live our lives to the fullest when we study until our brains give out and social pressure expect us to benefit the world through the damned economy? We need a cultural revolution in the way we are educated and demand some personal freedom to allow us to smoke marijuana because alcohol is legal and a more lethal drug. We just want to live our lives as happily as we can in this suppressed world where we are born into America’s debt and become slaves to the government to earn that money back that never existed in the first place.
Gloalization has proven to increase market competition. So It's no wonder, like this presentation says, that most industrialized countries are reforming education. Here in America were trying to do this by having greater ability to move teachers around on a reward based system. The teacher unions, however, are a powerful force and have locked out reform by denying a system like this. The teachers allege that test scores are not an acurate way to predict teacher efficiency; which is debatable. This is the political context in which this happens in American communities. The sociological view would point especially to the economic imperative that that governs these forces. This is an industrial society that regenerates itself by giving a formal education to its students.
I must say I absolutely loved this video; it is what it’s all about! Our education system is screwed up and this video describes exactly what’s wrong! Everything in the video makes sense and adds up. I have seen a few video about the reform of education and it’s always a wonder of why you can make these awesome videos that could be of potential change and reform but no one is hearing them specifically the government or the school districts. I guess this is because positions of authorities continue to want to improve on the old system which constantly continues to show it needs change. One of the most paramount things that I think really stood out in this video is the part when the professor talks about how we have or how schools think learning should take place based on age group, because there is indeed a trend that some of the youngest people are as intelligent as some of the older kids in schools today. Another one of the things in the video I found to be really well thought out is the terms of aesthetic experience and anesthetic experience. School thinks that art is one of the major things that distract us from what’s really “important” but in fact it is only stripping us of that creativity. Our senses are operating at their peak and we are truly alive when our senses are triggered—similar to the feel of excitement and happiness. When I often enter this state it is because something has made me want or wish I could create something better. The simple fact is that the entire system needs to be changed it is so true and everyone needs to see that with time comes adaptation and out society needs to see that changing the paradigm is vital for the success of future generation s otherwise we will be telling people what they want to hear instead of actually doing something about it. I feel like if you have anything to do with wonderful ideas and education reform you should be in the front running in helping make that happen. I went to a high school that at its core tried to reform the way we learn in every way but like all districts there are people who stand in the way of that progress and talk and complain about how the system to do that is flawed instead of offering their two cents. If we keep trying to hold our children back we will only keep falling short it’s just like the professor said, we are only capping the knowledge that people are capable of. Not everyone likes the same thing and school shouldn’t be the only way to show that!
I really appreciate the fact that someone has been able to talk about this so clearly and with such confidence. Of all the problems this world has, education has to be the biggest. I see now that the roots of our current education system are rooted in an antiquated and out-dated philosophy. This has to change. Schools and teachers and students must change to fit into this new economy, much as the speaker suggested. I'm just curious as to what a new education system would look like. I'm certain that it would be much less centered on Standardized Testing. The problem seems to be that we are pot-committed in a way. We have these schools that were built a certain way, we have these teachers who were trained to work in those schools, we have these firmly established and long-standing ideas and traditions that form the foundation of what we think of as "education." All this is to say that there will probably be a very slow, very methodical change in how this system works.
But society at large has to recognize it before any progress can be made. Doctors should have realized by now that the amount of stimulants being prescribed to students should be an indication of problems with the standards–not the students themselves. It's actually a wonder that they haven't already. I found it really interesting, too, about the rates of prescriptions for stimulants in relation to geographic location. I wish he would have gone into a little bit more detail about this phenomenon because I find it very strange.
I really support the idea behind fostering divergent thinking. I think that it has the possibility to really break into the core of the potential of learning. At the same time, however, I think that a certain amount of structure is a good thing. Society is established on certain standard beliefs and practices, those of which are reinforced through some form of repetition and, well, standardization. Some regimented activity, I believe, can be just as beneficial to healthy educational development as free roaming creativity.
This Video brings up many great points about today’s education. The one I find the most interesting is the point about the over medication of today’s children. Even when I was in school I thought it was ridicules that kids my age were given drugs to focus when most of knew even at that young age that we could focus if we wanted to. The only thing we seemed to lack was the self control or discipline to make ourselves pay attention. This isn’t to say that there are some people out there that do need the medication however it is far fewer than doctors proscribe the medication too. At one time I was going to be put on riddlin however that’s when I spoke up and said no I don’t need this I’m choosing to not pay attention. I think as many do that only those who truly can’t control the impulse to not pay attention should be medicated. This may be hard but if doctors were more willing to understand the patient and not as quick to simply say ok this pill will help with that we would see less of these “epidemics” sweeping the nation. The need to medicate the instant we think we have a problem is horribly destructive. I’m not talking about a sickness where not taking medical action is foolish but emotional or behavioral issues. Parents seem too quick to hear that pill X will “fix” their child when really the issue is with the parents or guardians unwillingness to take the time to parent properly. On the topic of education I have had a few friends drop out of College because it “wasn’t for them”. They both found the structured format of College opposed their normal thinking style. One of them was far more intelligent than any of my friends he did extraordinarily well in high school. He was one of the many people who were prescribed Medication for ADD but in the end he still found that he preferred learning by doing not sitting in a class of 200 kids. I’m sure it would benefit many people if there were alternate choices that could be made but for now its College of nothing or at least that is the way most of moder society sees it.
I thought that this was a very interesting speech/video clip, but I'm not sure it was very good. The guy talking goes through many different topics in a very short period of time, and he doesn't provide a very detailed analysis of any of these topics. The speech raises many questions in my mind, but it doesn't give me any answers. This isn't necessarily a problem, it's just that he seems to talk with a sense of confidence rather than a sense of raising questions. When he talks, he gives off the impression that he is answering questions, but really I think he is just raising them.
For example, when he talks about ADD he makes a variety of different, fairly provocative claims. He says that ADD is a "fictitious epidemic" and cites as evidence for this data that shows that ADD medication is prescribed more often as you go east. He says this indicates that there is not really an epidemic, because if the rates of medication prescribed are different then that indicates that the epidemic does not exist. I'm not totally clear why he draws this conclusion, but I think he is saying that because the rates of prescription of ADD medication are different then they cannot reflect the real rates of ADD. However, it's not clear that he acknowledges that ADD is real. Overall, I found this section of the speech (like the rest of the speech) to be very unsatisfying. He didn't articulate clearly what he was trying to say and, more importantly, he didn't provide sufficient evidence to support the claims he makes going forward. I think he could have easily given a whole speech just on the topic of ADD. He also could have given a whole speech about the topic of divergent thinking. I think his speech could easily be divided into 5 or 10 different speeches, and each of these individual speeches would be good, but as one huge, fast-moving speech it is just bad.
When we watched the video about the negative consequences of choice in class, the speaker laid out his problem and then at each step in his chain of reasoning he provided large amounts of evidence to support his points. For example, when he introduces the idea that we are faced with a tremendous amount of choice, he provides many different examples of situations in which we are faced with a massive quantity of choices. Only once he has clearly established this fact does he move on to discussing it. He is establishing a chain of of conclusions, and he makes sure that each link in the chain is strong, because otherwise the speech is a failure.
This speech does not provide strong evidence for its (numerous) claims, and as a result I think it is not good. The speaker draws a long chain of conclusions, but he doesn't bother to make sure that each of the links are strong enough to support the rest of the chain. In fact, he doesn't really make any of the links strong. He just strings a lot of them together very quickly to give the impression that he is giving a strong speech, when actually he is not.
The video was very interesting, but what it brought most to mind was something my vice-principal told me around the beginning of high school. While seeing him for guidance in my courses he said “Well, odds are the profession you end up working in doesn’t even exist right now”. And that’s an interesting concept, because I think we are among the first few generations who are going to grow up to probably be working in fields that don’t even exist. The problem with that is that it means that more or less any degree we get is a slight gamble.
This is also the reason that these days many people argue that liberal arts degrees are worth almost as much as any other degree, if not more, because they train critical thinking, which is almost more useful than anything else.
But all of this is relative, because a degree is more or less a construct of society. Realistically it’s not really possible to say that someone with a degree is necessarily smarter or better suited towards any profession, as it just means that they’ve had different ‘strings’ that pulled on them to allow them to be able to attend college. Despite this, society has yet to develop a better method of deciding who is allowed to do what, and so for now we maintain this outdated system.
This also reminds me of what Sam said early on to us “I’ve been trying to come up with a better way to grade than exams… but eh, I haven’t come up with anything, so we’re just going to have exams”. This seems to be more or less the attitude that most educators take towards the matter, and not because they’re lazy or couldn’t come up with a better method, but simply because exams are the way that we do things in our society. Although we all know on most levels exams are a very flawed way of examining knowledge, no one’s really come up with another, even mildly better way, and because of that we simply fall back on exams. Our society is built around the concept that education has to mean exams, and therefore that’s the only socially accepted method of testing aptitude.
One could argue that this is an example of groupthink, but on a simply massive scale, where we all shun the people who decide not to pursue degrees. Another thing that this kind of also shows is how we’re all socialized into believing that college will make us more successful and that if we go to college we’ll be able to achieve more in life. It’s not necessarily true, but for most of us who are here, we don’t know what else to do, and so since society tells us that it’s true, or because society requires us to get a degree if we want to be in a certain field, here we are.
I mean, at the end of the day, it’s the training that we’ll receive once we actually have a job that will be what really teaches us what to do once we are working, but society has set up these hoops that we have to jump through first to get to where we want to be, and so again, here we are.
first off, what a crazy awesome video.
Second, I agree on some aspects that video is trying to tell us. It makes it easy to understand that our education system is going in the wrong way. Our future is going to be extremely harder if we do not change this. and we have to understand that the education back in the day is completely different from the education that is required of us now. I liked how it explained that our system now is to standardized and that we should be getting rid of these tests. but of course our way of living in this world is based on how well you do on an exam. The sad part is unless you applying to grad school or furthering your education in anyway, you probably will not see your exam score in Chem 110 the rest of your life. but yet we put so much at stake on these out-dated ways of teaching. As far as ADHD is concerned, i feel that the show makes a striking claim that is not because of the students, that it is a fictatious epidemic that they use as an excuse to drug students into focusing more on our lame way of teaching. Sadly the level of technology is growing and its not going to stop anytime soon. These distractions are the key reasons for education diminishing. We are too into other things at the moment and our way of learning is too boring to grab our attention.
I remember asking my parents when i was younger why do i have to learn literature, when i wanted to do science? what is the reason in forcing our kids to think about something that they are not going to be interested in? I wanted to grow up to be a Doctor, but yet i have to waste my time and money on educating myself on say U.S. History for example instead of educating my self of Medical history or theories related to what i want to do with my life. a weak education is what we will have to other countries if we do not change.
Proponents of this system would probably say that if we tried something different, a system more open to new ideas where the individual gets to decide how they learn best, that too many kids wouldn’t know what was good for them – that too many kids WOULD cheat, or would think of ways to get around the system. When in fact if these kids were socialized to know the inherent value of education, and socialized to understand that they will always be the only ones in charge of their own destiny, this wouldn’t be a problem. A system where kids got to decide what they learned, and how they learned it, would also eventually bring value back to the college degree. Not all kids, after all, would want to or be capable of the sort of learning that is praised in our modern society – the kind of systematic, detached, forced knowledge acquisition learning that is often fostered through the use of stimulant medications like Adderall and Ritalin. The artsy kids would be allowed to eat mushrooms and think creatively and make mindblowing shit, the science nerds would be allowed to study physics and chemistry and spend a full third of their lives in the classroom, the gearheads would be allowed to mess around with cars and gadgets in their shops, the indecisive kids would be allowed to flip flop back and forth between potential courses of action, and everyone in between would be allowed to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Of course not all these kids would make it to college. Some would.. but some would become carpenters, some would become starving artists, some would become janitors, some would pick up other trades, some would drop out… etc. And suddenly a college degree has meaning again!
Isn’t it also funny that as the narrator mentioned, ours is by far the most stimulated of any other generation – we have computers and video games and smart phones and digital television – and yet, BECAUSE of the obvious fact that we respond to all this excessive stimulation with diverted focus, we are fed more stimulants. How counterintuitive is that? ..I should mention that I say this while typing on a computer with my smart phone next to me and my earbuds in, Adderall (and coincidentally, Ritalin as well tonight) pumping steadily through my veins. Oh sweet irony.
I saw this video a few months ago and I thought it was really cool. First of all, I really like how he said that studying things you don't care about is a bad thing… It should be obvious, but I'm still glad. I'm more of a Liberal Arts type of person, and while I might not be into English or Philosophy, my areas of interest still get a bad rep. I'm sorry, I just don't like math very much, and I was never a fan of chemistry! Anyways, that point aside, I think he makes a lot of great points.
Both our public schools and universities are way behind the times… I'm still pretty new to this whole university thing so I can't say much about that (and I've enjoyed what I've seen so far), but seeing as how I've spent twelve (thirteen if counting kindergarten) years of my life in public schools, I think it's fair for me to comment on these.
Public schools, as he said, are very much a part of the industrialized revolution. From the bells to the periods to what we are taught, it for the most part prepares us for a life of working in the factories. But since hardly anybody works in factories anymore, that's very outdated… Since we have moved past the industrialized revolution, we must fix our schools to fix that.
I was reading about for-profit universities the other day and one "con" of them that I found was that because they treated education as a "product", they did not educate their students as well as a normal university would. I agree with this. Human minds aren't something we can just run on an assembly line, that we can cut corners to produce the greatest profit, they're human beings and every one is different. Doesn't fit the factory or profit model very well, you know?
The ADHD map was really interesting for me. I was diagnosed with ADD when I was in about 5th grade. I don't know if it's real or not, but still… He made some very interesting points. The point he made about the arts and ADD medication reminded me of a story I heard in my THEA 100 class (which, if any of you non-graduate TAs are reading this, I highly recommend you to take if you have not done so already). There was this girl, I don't remember her name, but she could not sit still in her classes. This was very early on so something such as ADHD was rather unheard of. They took the girl to a psychologist, and instead of treating her, he suggested they enroll her into a dance school. She did and she did wonderfully, and she turned out to be a famous dancer on Broadway. If this happened in modern day times, they would have just prescribed her some ADD meds and this would have never happened.
When I was on ADD medicine, it really did "numb" me from everything, minus paying attention in school. It really stunts any sort of creative or "divergent" thoughts. How you get less and less "divergent" as you age is also worrying… I hope my education isn't doing that to me. I think his idea of a group orientated, "divergent" education is really interesting, and I'd love to be a part of that someday. It probably won't ever happen, but it'd be neat.
The teacher that put together the lecture was a very intelligent man and argued very well all the reasons why we need to change our education systems. My favorite part of his argument was how he said that we need not to make schools factory lines that just pump out groups of kids every year that are all taught the same way. Instead we need to look at students on an individual basis and realize some are ready for life before others are and we should not judge them in a negative way because of that, instead embrace that they are different and have to learn at their own pace. Also, just because a student comes from high school and goes to work instead of college does not mean they should be looked down upon or thought of as useless compared to people that go to college and get a higher education. Doing so would enable those people to do their job better, be interested in their job and go to work with an open mind and learn more about what they are doing. Instead in today’s society those people think that are worthless or not as useful compared to people with college degrees so they become more depressed and do not worry about doing their job well. Just because a person decides that they are not cut out for a college education does not mean that they are stupid, which is what we are taught to believe, but they have their own way of learning separate from ours. Another big problem with the education system that he points out is that we are segregated and not allowed to work with others for the most part and have to work alone. From my own experience I know that when I work in groups I get a lot of work done and feel like I learn a lot better. It is also very true that we still use the education systems that were built for the 18th and 19th century and we are no longer in that age, so it only makes sense that we fix our education systems for a more modern time.
WOW. I am speechless, no words can really express how much this video is totally awesome. Why can’t more men think like this man? WHY?! The drawing also depicted the speech PERFECTLY. Visuals aside this video is right on track with everything that is today’s educational system. What resounded with me was the topic of ADD/ADHD. I know friends who have told me that they were diagnosed ADD/ suggested that they take a type of medication to limit their energy. I personally have experienced this, two weeks ago!! I went for a physical, and everything checked out, up until the Physician Assistant suggested that I should be tested for ADD/ADHD. WHAT!!?? I’m eighteen years old for god’s sake, I’ve been through schooling for over 16 years without teachers noticing any kind of attention loss, my parents haven’t noticed it, and neither has anyone else. Strange huh? Yes, very strange. If doctors, medical professionals, what have you keep suggesting this, and they have been, what will our society turn to? A drugged up, senseless, emotionless child who will turn into a zombie, just like the video suggested.
The next topic that hit home with me is when the lecturer spoke about divergent thinking and creativity. Where has it gone? Creativity? Out the window along with everything else that has made people original and unique today. We have been dulled down and not allowed to express our inner thoughts because society has told us that we are not allowed to do so. If we were allowed to express how we felt inside the society we live in, would not be so mundane and boring. Hopefully in the near future, there will be resurgence in allowing originality to be shone through our self.
All in all, and as hard as it sounds, we, people need to be more free in expression. Acceptance of out of the ordinary should be more widely accepted instead of widely accepted/oppressed
This lecture provided a lot of interesting insights into the academic culture that we have in our society today. To be honest, I would never have thought about why our system is the way it is until after I viewed this video. It seems to me that the entirety of school is form of socialization with a goal of producing the ideal member of society. But in order to make that ideal member accessible to most people, the ideal member has to lose it’s self thought about exploration or “divergent thinking” and thusly think in a manner that can be accessible to anyone who goes through the process of academic life. I find that this is a problem because now school seems to be just a factory where we go in as individuals ,with as the video said, genius levels divergent thinking, and come out with some level of being the ideal generic member of society. And not everyone comes through the process so smoothly. Some may have issues and not fully transform into that ideal member and they are ones that cause “trouble” for the system. These are the students that are required to take drugs like Ritalin and other focus inducing drugs, because conformity in how students thinks is what the academic system wants. No wonder it is hard to find students that are truly interested in research and exploration in their respective fields of study. Most of us just want the grade and go straight into making the money. I believe that the socialization of us as students by the schools, has actually done us a disservice, by effectively wiping away our spark for imagination and wonder, which I believe is attributed to Divergent Thinking.
As well from this last lecture, I have come to realize that I myself am a victim of not having divergent thinking. I think that I am one of those students that have now become a grade oriented student. I am pressured by the school, culture in general, and even job employers to get as good of a grade as possible in my classes, that I miss the point of being in class. I don’t come to learn or explore anymore, I come to get a grade. I think that needs to change.
As a future educator this video clip terrifies me as it gets at the heart of the matter of what is currently wrong with our education system. In addition, the video addresses the challenges that I am going to face every day as a future teacher. I want to change the current education system because I feel that it is not producing the results that we want in students as far as them being able to think for themselves. Unfortunately, I have noticed this in my own experience with the education system. In comparison to what the video states I felt much more able to think outside of the box when I was in my young elementary school years. As a future educator I want my students to recapture their ability to think for themselves as it is the only way that they are going to be able to be successful in the future.
Another huge issue with our education system is that the majority of students and I have often found this in myself as a learner are solely concerned with grades and performing well on standardized tests that they forget to find enjoyment in learning. Education is approached in the wrong way because teachers are so concerned about preparing students for exams that they forget to incorporate fun in the classroom. This in term creates students who are very bored and therefore become stimulated with other things, which is why so many students are becoming diagnosed as ADHD. I agree with what was stated in the video about how many students are diagnosed as ADHD that should not be. If teachers restructured the way in which they taught I feel that this issue could possibly be decreased, however with the constant pressure of standardized testing this is not easy. As a future educator one of my main goals is to aid my students in finding enjoyment in learning. Lastly, much like the video I agree that the best way for students for learn is through them collaborating with one another and in my classroom this will occur frequently.
I thought the video brought up an interesting point when it discussed the issue of the education system being created for an industrialized society instead of today’s society. I agree with this statement and thought that the comment about how our education system is creating assembly workers and how schools should not be designed into departments and grade levels helped to really hit home at what is wrong with our current education system. We must prepare our students to be successful in today’s society and if restructuring our education system is what it is going to take then I am all for it. Unfortunately, this will be very difficult due to fear of change and possible failure. In addition, I think it will be difficult for people who have been through the current education system to imagine a different one and will be uncomfortable with their children having a different experience than they did. When I am a teacher I hope to fix some of the issues with the education system that were addressed in this video.
As Sir Ken Robinson elaborates in his presentation, there are many things wrong with our public education system. The fact that this system, which is supposed to help us advance in areas like math, science, and the arts, has not itself advanced is an indication of its imperfection. After all, it takes many years to perfect a single thesis, so the whole basis of our education should constantly be developing. It seems like since there was a lot of opposition during the development of public education, the founders passed as much as they could and made many compromises that may have brought it to the effective yet inefficient level it is at now.
Students are always complaining about standardized tests. On the other hand, colleges are complaining that they have no way of telling the level of education and experience under a student’s belt just from a GPA that is very biased from high school to high school. There needs to be a system that eases the stress from both parties. Otherwise, the consequences are severe. It could be students’ drug addictions to Ritalin-type focus drugs. In some cases, students are overwhelmed by work from a university that they should not have placed into and end up dropping out or worse committing suicide.
The public education system was developed with opposition. This means that there had to have been some kind of compromises made as there are in any controversial decisions. This means that many ideas from those in favor may have been ruled out that may have helped or improved the system. It is a system that has rusted through the ages since the industrial revolution. It seems like it is time for more than just a spit-shine here and there but maybe an educational revolution of itself.
Ultimately, our public education system is in need of urgent reformations because it is outdated, not as efficient in an evolving world, and because it is incapable of providing students the environment and platform on which they can excel to their maximum potential.
In my point of view this guy has everthing right and I wish he thought at pennstate. At least if had seminars anywhere in the radius of 150 miles of here ı would not think twice about going. But from the accent its easy to assume that he is pretty far away.
Like the commentator said our education system is based on the foundations of the industrial revelution that took place in the late 1800s. So our education system is far off from where it should be. I mean the last reform of educatıon ı remember came while bush was in office, the so called no chıld left behind bill: and we all know how well that worked out. A friend of mine had this to say about the school system “ you go to school for 25 years and you get out into the real world and now you need 25 more years to forget what learned at school in order to survive in the real world circumstances, because nothing you learn in school is the same once you start paying your own bills. Its not wrong to say going from school to real world is lilke going from an army game to actually becoming a soldier. Hence we have this delusion that we are preparing students at school for circumstances thay wiil face later on in their lives. In fact all we are doing is confusing them, and even isolating them to a point that they feel as if they are in a horse race.
I come from an eruropean background, so even looking upon the hıghschools around , I see how depressing they look from outside. Some schools I ve seen you cant tell if its actually an environment where students learn to become usefull and productive individuals to society or if its a down right maximum securıty prison. I know schools that have barbed wire walls and fences, even steel caged windows.
We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that we are very lazy at raising our children and we are very very lazy when it comes to utilizing a persons special traits as if all of us have to be exactly the same and go through the same system and methods of education.
First off, I have to say that the animation in this video is as brilliant as the point Sir Ken Robinson is trying to get across, props to whoever did that. In regards to the video, there are so many things I could talk about dealing with the subject matter that a ballpark of 350 words just couldn’t do it justice, so we’ll see what I can do here. I completely agree with the fact that the way we are learning and scored on such learning is in a form right now that doesn’t facilitate understanding as it should. There is a great tie-in to class in that grades, in particular GPA, aren’t the best way of measuring intelligence and knowledge. Classes today are taught in a way that focuses students of tests and exams to define their level of understanding of the subject material. This leads to classes that are basically taught solely around these tests, whether they’re exams and finals in the class or ones to come later like the MCATs or GREs. Being taught like this doesn’t allow students to question and think for themselves, instead it rewards those who memorize exactly what they’re required to to score well on these tests. A perfect example of this actually occurred to me. I was taking a biology course at our fine university and all of the weight of the course outside of the lab came from a handful of major exams throughout the semester. Point made, right? Not yet. The bank of test questions for each exam was handed out before each one, and despite being over 100 questions long, it still allowed students to just memorize the answers when they finally figured them out. So instead of learning through readings or listening to a professor teach and then thinking about what they’ve been taught, people in this class were just able to just look up the required information to successfully fill out the test bank, then were able to do well on the multiple choice test. Sadly, this is how many of our classes operate and will continue to do so unless dramatic changes occur and a push towards less standardized learning occurs, which would be a pretty big stone to pass.
I have seen videos like this before and I must say that they are always very well done. The animations along with the speech really keep your interest and do a great job of driving the point home. This man’s speech was very interesting and he presented some great, valid points. Our educational system isn’t something we give much thought to until we are asked to under these circumstances. It really is alarming that our system is the way it is, but I suppose it would be difficult to implement a new kind of system. When he compared our educational system to the factory assembly line, which just “pumps” out students, that point really struck me the most. To most schools, students are viewed as a number or a statistic. Schools receive federal and or state funding based on how well their students perform. In order to receive this funding, the school board administration pressures the teachers and the students to do well. In reality though, many teachers today are “teaching the test”. I can personally attest to this happening at my high school. My high school had a great reputation in the area for being a good school district that produced quality, well-rounded students. However, now that I really look back on it, I have really lost a good sum of the knowledge I gained through my years at high school. It seemed that after taking a hard test for one of my classes, I would leave the room and throw the information out of my mind and forget about it forever, or until I was to be tested on it again. I thought that was one of the huge problems in the educational system. The second teachers would tell the class that either the information wasn’t on the test or we weren’t going to be required to know it, students (myself included) wouldn’t make much of an effort to know the information and retain it. Despite the many problems our educational system faces, the most positive thing I think that is gained from the public education system is the social development of the kids as they progress from grade to grade.
What is the best way to educate? How do we educate the masses in an efficient yet effective way? These are obvious questions our society has been toying with for quite some time.
We know for certain that every being changes in some small, minute way each and every day. When these small personal changes are compounded over time, a large change suddenly becomes apparent. As we extend this idea further and compound each individual’s already compounded change, a truly enormous change now exists. These changes in individuals taken as a conglomerate lead to societal changes. Suddenly, all organizations, activities, systems, thought processes, etc. have evolved and progressed. However, it takes progressive, simultaneous change to realize that the activities, organizations, thought processes, etc. revolving around the individuals are lagging behind. Without change in thought and a developed need for evolution, systematic problems would not occur. Our programs would easily meet our needs. However, life does not work this way. We progress. There is no stopping it. This video made it very apparent that our current educational system is lagging behind the changes that have occurred in our society. Our educational system, based on ideas from the industrial revolution and enlightenment time periods, no longer fully satisfies the needs of our current society. No longer does a college education guarantee a job. No longer are the educational needs of society and of individuals met through school. Now, teachers are known to “teach to the test.” They are forced to treat each student equally and stay on specific schedules. There is a very limited capacity for individual learning plans. This video emphasized the point that students are all too often taught that there is just one correct answer. There is one correct way to approach a problem and only one. Our ability to express divergent thinking decreases over time. I observe this very concept in myself and in my own thinking. I know that my own ability to think divergently has greatly decreased throughout my educational career. This has occurred through years of test taking with only one correct answer to each and every problem. It occurred through years of interpreting test questions differently than the teacher/ professor wrote them and answering them accordingly, but, in the interpretation of the teacher, incorrectly. Very rarely would any teacher/ professor take the time to hear my interpretation, yet alone give me points back. This, most certainly, has all compounded to decrease my ability to think in a divergent manner. Just think, how often do professors accept your point of view on a question? How often have you done a problem a different way than that which was presented in class and worked it through to the correct answer only to receive points off on the assignment because you did not do it the “correct” way? This, I feel, happens all to often. I find it very ironic that most of us, in all reality, will not even use the majority of the facts we learn in college. Even so, a huge emphasis is placed on learning the material and earning top grades. A huge emphasis is placed on developing the ability to arrive at the one “correct” answer. Shouldn’t school instead be a place to teach skills for life? Shouldn’t it be a place that teaches skills that will truly be put to use outside of the classroom, instead of a place that often teaches facts most of us won’t remember or use once we leave? I understand that there will always be problems with any system. We established this fact in class. We need rules or chaos would run wild. As with everything, an experience is often what you make it. Therefore, education is what you make it. Is there realistically a better way to approach education? Maybe yes, maybe no. I believe that progressive changes can most certainly occur. However, it will never be perfect as nothing ever will be.
Thinking negatively of the public education system in American has been a common past time from me in the past. I hated most of middle school and high school because I felt like I was somehow getting left behind and looked over. I have never been a good test taker. It didn’t matter the subject, regurgitating information back onto a piece of paper is not fun for me. Until recently I was thinking I was alone.
While many administrators argued that my school district was the best education around, I still argued when I am going to use this, math especially. Why the hell do I need to know how x is related to y?
The video brought up many good points, in ways I haven’t thought of before. Our current public education system is based on the turn of the century way of thinking. With the advent of the industrial revolution education in math and the sciences was taught because the gap between the upper class and the lower class was not much at all. A lot of the methods used to teach at this time period were used as an alternative to high education, i.e. college or graduate school.
At this point in education, one who does not go to college or at least a trade school will not be able to supply for themselves let alone a family. As I made the transition from high school to college I began to see that I am not alone. With the invention of the internet, cell phones, on demand t.v, portable DVD players, video games, and eventually smart phones students cannot balance time with all, not to mention school as well!
America brags about our school systems, but you don’t have to travel far to find really horrible school districts with no funding, where students can barely read by high school. Inner city schools are drowning within their own cities because it seems no children have the drive to learn anymore. And I do not blame them. I once fell in the same boat.
To solve this problem, I believe we should do as the video stated, and give students problem solving skills they could actually use in the real world. Introduce them to technology at an early age and use it to further education. Finally, get rid of standardized testing in schools in order to take away the individualism among student.
I originally watched this video in preparations for my soc 119 exam, and didn’t take much time to actually think about the material. After viewing this video a second time, I stopped to think and everything stated in this video makes perfect sense. Most adults say that they are constantly learning from their children, and that kids are so smart. At some point, everybody was a child, so logically adults should be astronomically smarter than their kids. However, the opposite appears in the world we live in. About a month ago I told my friends that I felt as if high school drained my brain of knowledge. The reason for this is because all throughout elementary school and middle school I found myself defying the limits set upon me by school. I did not behave as a traditional student would. However, once I hit high school I realized that behavior would no longer be acceptable if I were to move on to a respectable university. As I conformed to people’s standards, I became less of an individual. I stopped thinking of innovative ways to behave, and instead learned to tell a teacher what they wanted to hear, or give them what I knew they wanted to read. As time moved along, I was molded into the shape that society believed to be correct. Modern day schools do not encourage learning they encourage grades. As students we are encouraged to memorize a list of terms so we will pass the test, not so that we will actually know and internalize these things. I know people who have “perfect” 4.0 GPAs, so by society’s standards, they would be considered to be smart. However, if I were to further converse with these people I would realize that they are not truly smart; they just go through the motions put before them. As a country, we would like to get ahead in the world and become innovators for the next generations, however, if school systems don’t change and begin to actually educate their students, we will remain behind.
It seems absolutely ridiculous when they point out all of these flaws in our educational system. Any institution that stays stagnant for this long has got to be outdated and cannot be working completely efficiently. For starters, its clear that age cannot be the most important facet that dictates what level of learning a student is on. I know that for me, being a “gifted” student, I did not get the appropriate level of attention on the things that interested me. I was so bored with school and I blame the public school system for holding me back for so long. I really was one of those creative-type children and I feel like I was zapped of my creativity and it is so difficult to get that back.
I would definitely make many of the changes that he suggested. I would change the level of education based on intelligence and based on creativity. Next, I would try to figure out how people worked best. They said that many people learn differently in different kinds of groups. It is clear to me that I work best in medium sized groups but I have not really found a system that provided that for me. Especially in college it is so difficult to find the appropriate sized groups to learn best. It is difficult in Penn State, with their large classes, to be able to find the best size group to learn.
The metaphor of the public education system to be compared to a factory makes a lot of sense. How they divide us into subject and age and ability. We really do lose the sense of aesthetic beauty that comes with learning. It is truly a travesty to refuse our kids this chance.
Also It is clear that this ADHD epidemic is not really one at all. We are medicating our children to become workaholic drones and they will lose so much from the educational process. I propose that we try to revamp our education system as soon as we can. So that no other gifting and excited, creative people lose out on so much of the wonders of learning.
How efficient is our educational system, really? That question, I think, effectively sums up the major question that this video left me with. I think any student who has had to sit through seemingly endless hours of school would agree with Sir Ken Robinson’s assessment of the system. It fails to capture the attention of many students. I think Robinson is right to point out that an educational system based around the Industrial Revolution is probably not relevant to modern times. How could it be? It’s interesting to think about how that structure has shaped our society today. The average workday in the Industrial Revolution roughly matches the time span of a typical school day. We still carry this legacy today in American society. Parents arrive home from work at around the same time that the school buses return their children. This paradigm is deeply ingrained into society. So, if we need a paradigm shift, as Robinson suggests, how could we do that? [Continued in Next Comment]
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I’m all for education reforms, but I’m not sure how practical changing the structure of schools would work. Our society has simply become too used to the current system, it won’t change. Unless the reforms happened slowly, of course. If we could gently edge our educational system into a new paradigm, a real shift might occur. Though, as a side note, I disagree with Robinson’s criticism of schools’ grouping children together by age. I think that is actually a good way to educate. At different ages, children are at different stages in their physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development. There are children who progress to higher levels than is typical of their age group, but in general, the ages match key developmental stages. We could change everything else, but educating children in groups based on age is a fitting, useful method.
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Also, I would like to address Robinson’s comments regarding ADHD and education. I’m not sure what to think regarding the perceived “ADHD epidemic.” But, in my experience, students diagnosed with ADHD usually struggle with the current educational system. They simply don’t “fit in” with the current paradigm, and as a result, society judges them. Such students are labeled as “less intelligent” than students without ADHD. Sadly, many of the students start to believe what society says about them, and their drive to succeed is hindered. It is tragic that so many potentially successful, intelligent students are being marginalized due to flaws in the educational system. So, I’m not sure what kind of paradigm shift we will be capable of, but I hope it leads us to a better future.
Education is a serious topic in today’s society. Its importance is stressed and yet the funding necessary for it to successfully take place is being cut. As seen in this video, there needs to be a new development, which costs money, of ways to teach children because the old style of teaching with a mind set on industrialization is no longer necessary. With an “intensely stimulating society” as a distraction, children need to have a more aesthetic experience to keep them fully alive and open-minded and at their maximum learning potential. It is obvious that children have various types of learning styles, ones that focus better on different subject, or in the daytime, or in groups. Instead, society has made schools another place of conformity focused more on high scores on standardized testing rather than having the students just learn as much useful information as possible in an environment that best suits their learning style. Students are encouraged to think critically on only a couple questions on a test, which is probably why divergent thinking deteriorates with age. In today’s society, people collaborate with one another making it almost difficult to work efficiently on their own. As said at the end of the video, the habits of institutes should focus on the habitats they occupy.
It was interesting to learn about all of this in the video because I am always hearing that students have many different types of learning styles. Sure, some teachers try to incorporate different types of teaching to account for those different types of learning styles, but many are not. Instead, schools are still based on the learning styles that were developed many years ago despite the fact that there needs to be an adjustment. Also, ADHD is a condition that people take too lightly or look to as an excuse, rather than removing themselves from the distractions that decrease their focus. What will it take to reform schools to best suit the various learning styles and increase the percentage of divergent thinking? The capability is there but is not being properly addressed. The world has changed dramatically but schools have not, and it is time that they adapt to their surroundings and accommodate to the new needs of the students. Of course, with all of the new budget cuts, this may never happen.
(1/2)I am glad to be a part of a nation that has such a structured education system. We are very privileged to be in a country that requires us to have an education and considers it child abuse if your parents were to deny it from you. There are serious flaws with the way we are educated though. Many of those flaws have to do how the grades you receive are very un fair. There is no way to be able to regulate the grades between classes so even though I am taking the same sociology class as my friend, she could potentially get a better grade even though I try twice as hard because her teacher is easy. Grade point averages are a lot of what getting a job in real life relies on, but what significance do those really have? Yes, they say what grades we received in high school but my 3.0 from Penn State might mean that I am actually better the job than the 4.0 out of Bloomsburg because my course was a lot more rigorous and my professors demanded a lot more of me. This problem travels down even to the high school level. I personally think I benefitted from this problem.
(2/2). I graduated from my class of fifty kids with a 4.0 but I do not feel my 4.0 is even comparable to the students who received 4.0’s from the school that is thirty minutes away from that has a graduating class of five hundred. This is a blatant but how would we even fix this? Standardized testing or requiring the same test in each class could be one way. If everyone had to take the same test, test score variance would not be a problem anymore. Another un fair occurrence with our education is how you have to pay for labels. I think every school should charge the same amount to attend. It must really suck for the kid who is poor who has the same sat and gpa scores as a kid who is rich but cant go to a better school cause he simply cannot afford it.