Status vs. Education

[DossarLX ODI]

The title might sound a bit bizarre, but it directly relates to the transition from high school to the university level. I watched a 5-part series on improving study tips, and it made me think about how high school strategies need to be unlearned (mindless memorization and skimming, procrastination, overconfidence, etc). I always see students saying something along the lines of “I got accepted into a college!” and take it as some sort of status achievement. However, the reality many times is that a student fails to complete his or her degree, and winds up being in debt and having to pay off student loans.

This brings up the thread title: Is secondary education influenced by the bias of college being a representation of status and prestige? Why are students being given packets of information with a lot of definitions and told to memorize them? In my history classes all I did was read through a lot of text and memorize many dates and such. Yes, I did well on the tests from being able to retain information for a short period of time, but I don’t remember most of what I did in those classes. I don’t learn from being given big packets and reading through text where almost 90% of it is irrelevant and then the other 10% is what’s put on the actual quizzes/exams.

Below is the views comparison between part 1 in the series I watched to part 5. Part 5 only has around 25% of the views of the part 1. This takes me back to the “senioritis” term that floated around when I was in high school – doing good in the first half of the semester, but then putting in less effort in the second half. I feel like students tend to lose interest in studying from being hyped about getting accepted into a college, taking it as some kind of status accomplishment. What’s mentioned in the 5-part series I linked below is something that does not get a lot of attention in high school.

Part 1: 397,809 views Link
Part 5: 98,107 views

I feel like there’s a lot of arrogance associated with the transition from high school to university. Students go into university thinking they’re prepared with the strategies they used in high school, but then in the actual university courses what they did in high school is useless. The status illusion, in my opinion, is what causes a lot of students to go into deep debt. Rather than wait and get some money beforehand, they try going straight to university so they can brag about being in a college. I feel like this is detrimental to education as it also affects high school students who aren’t changing their study habits.

Of course, this also doesn’t factor in teachers who grade like assholes. There was a teacher at my university who is no longer teaching – she basically graded 0%, 50%, or 100%. It was ridiculous and that teacher usually put in many assignments that required much more knowledge than what was being mentioned in the textbook. Being a professor at a university can also be seen as a status accomplishment, but many professors are usually known for the research they’ve done; some are very bad teachers. Some professors become so arrogant to the point where they don’t admit that they can improve their ways of teaching, and when half the class fails, they blame all of it on the students. My physics professor in my first semester of freshman year incorrectly attempted some questions that my friends asked – so not only was that professor bad at teaching, he also was quite incompetent.

Thoughts on how status affects education? I feel like not mentioning these important studies about cognitive research in high schools misleads students into getting into a lifetime of debt.

[PaperclipGames]

The main reason why secondary school tends to teach strategies the way they do is simply because they need to teach a broad curriculum. Pupils need to know what a particular subject is about as a whole, to form a decent opinion, and to find out what they kind of study they even wish to pursue. It is impossible to properly judge particular courses and studies without knowing anything concrete about it.

Because there's only a limited amount of time, and in particular a limited attention span, the courses in secondary school must be given in a sort of "information" way, rather than an "understanding" way. It is impossible to teach secondary school students to understand every course, primarily because these students will have particular interests and skills - and thus simply cannot understand particular things well because of it. I always regarded secondary school to be an extended orientation for the student to decide what he actually wishes to learn.

Thus, it is about plain knowledge first - and the main methods that come along with that are simple memory; short-term memory in most cases (at least for me). Which is why it's actually a poor preparation for college/university, but the question is: how else are we supposed to acquiant students with all these different types of studies?

I think most students that enroll into college and uni quickly learn that the way things need to be dealt with are fundamentally different from that in highschool. In my case at least, the students are for a large portion let go of: coursework is all your own responsibility to do and hand in, you're free to enroll for a course or a test, or not to; and you're free to show up whenever you do and don't like. The arrogant and lazy will see, after their first semester, that going the way they did before isn't going to be enough. Some will learn from this, others will fail. I've seen this happen to my fellow students, and to myself, too. (I wasn't so much arrogant, I simply never learned to... well, properly put a lot of effort into anything, simply because I never had to.)

I think we can all agree that BS teachers are a negative influence on students as a whole.

I think the main problem is that it is nigh impossible to both acquaint students with lots of different courses, and providing them the right tools to understand and learn in the proper way, at the same time.

[SC_coolguy44]

I feel you, Dossar. I had a couple professors in college where half the students fail their classes because they blame the students and they don't give enough shits to teach to how the student learns (which is also part of the reason I failed a couple classes twice, and why I'm dropping out of college). In my program that I was in, which was an automotive program, they had lectures and shop time (the shop time was ever 2 or 3 weeks). I learned basically nothing from the lectures because that's not how I learn. I'm strictly a hands-on learner. Also, it would've been nice to have the shop time every day/class and have the exam be completely practical stuff, but this wouldn't be able to happen because for the most part colleges and universities only do stuff by the book and are not willing to completely overhaul what their programs look like.

[TheSaxRunner05]

Yea most freshman are nitwits.

[PaperclipGames]

Most of the professors I've had are pretty decent, and even if they're not that good in teaching (I've never had actual bad ones yet), they're still actually willing to help out students and are there for students. I can imagine it being incredibly frustrating if you had shitty professors, though...

And yes, a lot of freshmen are nitwits in the sense that they like to be loud and party hard and feel like they are now adults and responsible and awesome, while in reality they are not. It especially became visible when I started my second year in uni, and found out how immature and irresponsible a lot of the freshmen were in terms of doing their work and going to classes.

[Fission]

my freshman year first semester computer science class: ~25 students
second semester: ~5 students

lol freshmen

there is most certainly social pressures involved with pursuing a degree. like the original post stated, people want status to make themselves look better even if they don't have the study ethic for uni. additionally, there is pressure from friends and family in order to not disappoint them. finally, there is pressure from employers in the form of them hiring candidates with degrees or in the process of earning one.

back to the original post -- i think people regard getting accepted to a school they applied to as a status achievement because it fulfills most of the aforementioned social pressures associated with needing to get a degree and needing to go to school after high school, regardless of if you can be successful without doing either.

[Arkuski]

Originally Posted by TheSaxRunner05

Yea most freshman are nitwits.

Truth.

Undergraduate is an expensive daycare.

[Choofers]

Another large point to consider is that high schools are "teaching" to a broad spectrum of mindsets. Teachers have to dumb down material and teach in a very basic way. You can't teach the concepts of a science, or musical/artistic theory to someone if they're dumb as a board.

So I think that the freshmen who aren't prepared to get their shit wrecked, ultimately do very badly in college (ie they actually do get their shit wrecked). They get excited, since they Got Accepted Into That One Good College and fail to realize that it's not a game anymore.

[Fission]

Originally Posted by Arkuski

Undergraduate is an expensive daycare.

not true for everybody. i would consider myself a pretty diligent student.

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by Fission

not true for everybody. i would consider myself a pretty diligent student.

fucking this, seriously <_<;

When it comes to academics, it should be a given that you are going to run into subjects that you don't care to put your full attention to because it doesn't suit your interests.

As someone who grew up in Chicago, I can definitely support the argument regarding quality of learning versus your study habits and whatnot -- Chicago is infamous for having schools of varying quality, with many of the poor quality pre-secondary schools being localized to areas containing minorities. This is not a statistical debate here, but I would like to add that I was in one of these not-so-great schools prior to high school. The teachers obviously did not use their resources fully and almost taught lessons because it was their job, not because it was something they cared/enjoyed doing. With that being said, not all educators are like this. However, it goes without saying that some teachers in lower-level education certainly do not promote the appropriate habits needed to gear you for success. Things like diligent studying, care attention to organization, and even less apparent things like rationalizing studied situation in manners that are applicable to your interests are not emphasized well enough. There are also instances where educators will even go as far as demeaning you for being prideful for caring so much about minor details just to ensure that you do well, even if you are someone who takes the time to actually comprehend everything.

When I was in high school, the transformation of the learning environment absolutely killed me. I was a really good student trapped in a school of lazy students in primary/junior-high, and complacency led me to getting very poor grades on my first semester of high school; I figured I could get around doing little to nothing, despite being in a college-preparatory tech school. Once I got over that little hump, secondary education was a breeze, if not completely boring. I did the minimum to ensure I was getting good grades - study key terms, fixate on main topics, yadayadayada, and more often than not, I got acceptable grades (As/Bs).

I'm doing my college studies online, and let me tell you -- I am not able to do any micro-management of studies AT ALL, holy shit. So many people have tried to sit there and tell me that online studies are a cakewalk and that they're just an easy way to get a degree... ugh. Having to cram so much work in such a small time period is an absolute killer. In my last term, I had a foundations of C# programming class... the module said I packed in an average of 17 hours per week, and that's not including my other classes or my job where I worked as much as 40 hours a week (and as little as 24). I still ended up getting a B, despite hard work, diligent studies, and a great professor in my opinion. The point that I am trying to get across is that application is an important thing, and not having a reason (or unfortunately, the time) to apply your studies is typically detrimental to your success.

Choofers brings up a huge point as to why this happens so frequently: high schools typically don't specialize in a specific type of training - there are typically an enormous amount of students, and (at least in my case) it is typically a very unfocused environment. Teachers neither have the time to break down the curriculum in a way that is understandable by laymen, nor do they have the flexibility to manipulate the current structure of a given class to ensure that everyone understands it -- it's quite linear, and multiple classes will be moving at the same pace, despite who is far ahead or far behind. If students are falling behind, it is up to the educator to bring them back up to speed by engaging students more actively, so that they don't just automatically feel like they are destined to do poorly. If students are ahead, educators should find ways to continually engage them by giving them additional challenges if they're interested in seeking them. I remember my Physics class back in my Junior year of high school -- there were many instances where we had reading material without assignments in the second semester, and students had the impression that our teacher was very lenient and did not have it in him to fail students... let's just say I was the only student to end up with an A grade for semester 2, lol.

When it comes to acceptance of a good school versus status, I agree with Fission: students apply to prestigious schools knowing full well that there is a chance to be denied; when they find out that they are one of the select few that make it, they feel like they're on top of the world -- being prideful is quite alright as long you realize that the continued success is only possible if you are prepared to work your ass off. Many Freshmen forget about that and let their thoughts of "freedom" get in their heads, because they're away from their parents, and in their minds, responsibilities -- a wrong mindset to have.

[Reincarnate]

Academia is so broken that I can't even discuss it anymore because there's simply too much to say and so much bleakness with every solution.

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

Academia is so broken that I can't even discuss it anymore because there's simply too much to say and so much bleakness with every solution.

Agreed. Academia is way too mired in social politics and policies. It's disgusting.

[devonin]

just go watch the "changing paradigms" PSA video and do your best to push for those suggested solutions. They're really the best way forward.

[Arch0wl]

I watched the RSA Animate video and while it's well animated, sure, the deeper content just seems like a lot of the talking points that reddit circlejerks about education. There isn't really a lot of explanation for why certain things work, just assertions that this thing is good. It's like the author just expects me to agree with his conclusions and fill in his reasons for him. The bit about standardized testing for example -- okay, yeah, I get it, standardized testing is evil. But it's also the most individual study-friendly of all education models, because it requires less manual effort on part of a teacher to structure the material and is friendly to self-studying. Math is largely standardized up to a certain point, and that allows for some of the quickest advancement re: prodigies because it removes ambiguity in what is required for progression.

It's also not clear how the author of that video expects college admissions to work on a national or even international scale when you have a process that takes into account high school GPA, since some high school GPAs can be better than others. That's why the SAT exists, anyway. As long as you have parents who complain when their kid fails, and as long as you have administrators who gain money from those parents, you will have grade inflation and you will need some standard to compare everyone to when you're dealing with a bunch of numbers that tell you nothing.