School systems in America.

[angel-d]

Don't worry; it isn't only the school system in America that is messed up.

In most Asian Countries: Memorization is the key. Numbers and facts are drilled into kids which they must regurgitate in order to get good grades. This is why they are good at math, which is basically a bunch of rules and formula that if you memorize you can do moth math problems.

In UK: You have to choose what you want to specialize in at the end of 8th grade. Then you take 5 or 7 GCSE's (depending on how much work you want to do) followed by 3 AS levels (in 11th grade) and 2 A levels (in 12th grade). Although there isn't as much emphasis on memorization, unless you go to a private school in UK you won't get much attention from teachers (over crowding in public school) and they don't care much due to under pay anyway. Basically public school in UK; you are on your own kids.

I'm not to sure about Europe and Australasia as I haven't seen the school systems there, but France puts quite a lot of emphasis on memorization from what I can tell from years of summer school there.

However there is hope. IB is the system used in most international schools and is (in my opinion) one of the best systems out there. The emphasis of IB is using your own mind and figuring out how and why things work instead of just memorizing what happens. For example in Economics, after learning the basic principals, student will go and find companies to analyze and then explain what principals they found there and how they work in the real world.
There is an IB syllabus for all ages from KG to 12th grade which all works in the same way. The best part about it however is when you get to your final years (11th and 12th grade) where instead of specializing, you have to continue taking a broad range of subjects, allowing you 2 extra years to decide what you want to specialize in when you get to college.

The classes you must take for IB 11th and 12th grade are (the examples used are the ones from my school, although there are hundreds of more specialized options):
A1 language- your primary language, normally English.
B1 language- something else, such as French, Spanish or Japanese.
Science- Biology, Chemistry or Physics.
Social science - Economics, History, Geography.
Math - Lower level, Standard level or Higher level.
Free option - (normally used for arts subjects) Drama, Art, Music
TOK - Theory of Knowledge

On top of these classes, if a student wishes to receive a full diploma instead of just certificates in each individual subject they must complete 60 hours in each of these sections:
Creativity- such as performing in a school play.
Action- Playing on a school team.
Service- Community service- either helping in the wider community or within the school.

Finally a 10,000 research piece must be written on a subject of the student’s choice. This can be anything and simply introduces you to writing long papers. I did mine on a comparison between 2 dances, the Balinese Kechak and the Mauri Hakka.

I might be slightly bias as IB is the system my school used, however I think it is one of the best out there as you are taught to think and are able to explore a lot of different subjects all the way through.

If you are interested, this is the site for the IB organization.
http://www.ibo.org/
More specifically for the Diploma program (11th and 12th grade)
http://www.ibo.org/diploma/

[sherbtail]

i dno, i read in the times the other day that IB wasnt looked well upon by most schools because it only favours the really academic people, but then everyone who ive heard from doing IB really likes it. Yeah im lucky I go to a private school and was well lucky in my public private school so I have a slightly skewed opinion on the British education system.

Apparently over here, Cambridge is teaming up with loads of academics and developing an A level type system of their own which sounds promising.

[angel-d]

Hmm thats wierd, I always thought IB catered to people of all standards. Especially as you have the option to take each class seperately as a certificate (meaning you can do as many or as few as you like and still get some sort of qualification) or as the diploma (with the additional core requirements of TOK, CAS and extended essay).
As far as I am aware Universities and Colleges have higher entry requirements of IB students than people on other systems because they are, as yet, not as familliar with the system and so unable to correctly judge what the requirements should be. For example, if a course requires 2B for A levels, the IB requirement would be the equivillant of around 1A 1B A levels.

But I guess it is possible if they were talking about the diploma program itself without considering the certificate option. The diploma is a challenging program due to the number of subjects you need to take as well as the extra requirements.

[The_Q]

I honestly believe that the best way to improve the schools is to privatize the lot of them. America would never let that happen, sadly enough.

I'll go for the alternative, anyway. School vouchers, a system by which competition between schools is enforced without actually forcing parents to (directly) pay. This system allows the parent to choose exactly where they would like their child to go to school and then have the government pay for the whole thing. The possibility of choice would force the schools to do their best in order to gain more students, to compete or go broke. It would provide for better-paid teachers and give students only the best teachers as the others would have been ousted from the market (or moved to areas with lower demand curves).

Q

[slipstrike0159]

Grades have nothing to do with our intelligence level, all they depend on is our ability to jump through the hoop our teacher places. After you go through that hoop, you virtually dont need to worry about it ever again so you dont care why you did it or even how you did it.
You have to admit, our public school system is a LOT better than it used to be. I bet if you go ask your parents or grandparents they will tell you that they werent learning things like calculus until they were far in college. They also have things called AP (Advanced Placement) classes in my high school. All they are is to get prepared for college, you get college credit at the end of the year if you pass the college board test. Its not just facts either, a lot of it has to do with application - essays, critical thinking, how one event lead to another and basic human nature (at least in history). Another thing, our AP classes here have DOUBLE the students the regular classes have. The teachers are the best ive seen and its not like "take this home, take the test, dont worry about it anymore". They teach you concepts and then you read the books for the reasons the concepts became the way they did and then you write essays elaborating and arguing what happened and why it happened. All of it depends on the test at the end of the year and if you dont understand and take part in active learning the whole time, then you wont do well and it will have all been worthless
If you are talking about the people being too dumb to know what they are voting for, then what are you going to do, give them a test? If you do that, then you will hardly get any voters and thats exactly what the government doesnt need.

[Meteor858]

although grades in school seem quite pointless i think that they do have some meaning, they show how much time we are able to spend and how resourceful we are in gathering information...

im hearing alot about test scores, and i truthfully think that a lot of the tests can be total bull****... i have taken both the ACT and SAT since seventh grade up every year... and i believe that the questions are quite... well... simple... a lot of it has to do with how quickly you read and how quickly you are able to make an educated guess on the data fed to you...

though these tests are good in the short run, the data learned in them is easily forgotten and the school system often doesnt help with that...

I am currently doing horribly in math compared to the other kids in my grade... why? because last year i was in an advanced math class. In this class you were kept in the class if you achieved a grade of a b- or higher... if you got a C+ or worse... your grades were no longer counted but you were able to audit the class to keep up on the information...

This year i dont have a math class... why? Because the school system won't let me have one. Because I passed the first half of the school year in that math class I am not allowed to take it again because some parents will have their kids take the same class twice to increase their scores... So because of these other people's bending of the rules... i am left without a math class until the second semester... I fear that I will be very far behind once I rejoin the class because I haven't had a teacher in over a year... To make up for this... They gave me the text book that they are using in class and they give me a schedule of what work they are doing, and when so i will be "on time" with the rest of the class once i join in again... This may sound all fine and dandy but there is one flaw... I DON'T HAVE A TEACHER! I can do the work all day long and I could literally be doing it all wrong... Will I have anyway of knowing this? No... I blame the school system for not breaking the rules and letting me into the goddamn math class and letting me audit the first half of the year so i can actually have a teacher...

America's school system has ruined my year, and quite possibly, ruined my chances of becoming a Veterinarian (the career i have dreamed of for years now)

[jewpinthethird]

IB is stupid program. It sucks funds from other departments, and it often replaces the more standard AP program. I wanted to take AP English my senior year, but my school merged the AP and IB programs, but IB ran on a different schedule from the rest of the school and thus, I ended up vegetating in general ed.

[Swoop]

Originally Posted by Laharl

People spout out how American students don't perform as well as students from other countries.

That is a MYTH. Yes, on average, it is true, but that's because the VAST majority of the rest of the modern world weeds out the lower ends of their classes year by year. The top 10% of American students outperform the top 10% of any other country, or at least are on equal footing.

Why do you think that the most intelligent people from other countries seek a college education at an American university?

The other people in other countries want our fatening greasy food. Yes we do have smart people but the majority dont even know all 50 states and i have facts! On Ripleys Believe it or not, there was this 3 year old girl in china and she could speak english so they brought her here and she knew all 50 states. The Ripleys crew did a poll with some sort of map involving the states. They would ask a random adult that was born here to name the blanked out state on the map. 70% of the people that they asked didnt know it. But the little chinese girl knew all fiftey!

[chickendude]

Originally Posted by Swoop

The other people in other countries want our fatening greasy food. Yes we do have smart people but the majority dont even know all 50 states and i have facts! On Ripleys Believe it or not, there was this 3 year old girl in china and she could speak english so they brought her here and she knew all 50 states. The Ripleys crew did a poll with some sort of map involving the states. They would ask a random adult that was born here to name the blanked out state on the map. 70% of the people that they asked didnt know it. But the little chinese girl knew all fiftey!

bah, you missed the entire point of his post
what he's trying to say is that

you're comparing one of the top asian kids with the entire American public
of course she beats 70% of them. Most people don't know a lot. Most people don't care. It's a fact. You just can't make comparisons like that and expect them to have any meaning.


anyway, the more I read this thread, the more I'm glad that I go to my school. My school is nothing like what you guys are describing. It's a plain public school, but I don't feel like I'm being forced to memorize and regurgitate. In fact, I'm very bad at that, but I still do well.

Math is my best subject, but unlike in Asia, I don't learn it by rote memorization. If I don't understand the origins of theorems and ideas, I have trouble understanding them. I often end up looking up the proofs of things outside of clas because that is how I remember things. I may do worse in the short term, but when I have final exams/ competitions/ any cumulative thing, I end up doing far better.

[ImEric12]

Originally Posted by Meteor858

~stuff~

That's not America's school system ruining your chances, you just go to a really ****ed up school. Your parents should be raising cain with the school district.

[Meteor858]

they are raising hell in the school district and the school district threatened to sue us if we kept bugging them so we backed off <.<

[phyro989]

Originally Posted by dsadsadsa

So my 3rd period IB Chemistry teacher has me thinking about schools. Since as far as I can remember, all schooling has been is memorize a bunch of information, and then show the teacher that I remembered it every week or so. Within a year or so after the class is finished, I can hardly remember anything from the class. Once in a while, he goes on about how we aren't nearly as educated as we could be, and it's not even our own faults. So many kids that got all A's and B's in high school end up dropping out of college because their teacher have lowered standards dramatically, without them knowing it. The USA loses pretty much every international intelegence competition. Thoughts?

You hit the head on the nail. And also they are not teaching at the correct speed they should be. Like say when you start to learn 2+2=4 then you should learn 2A+2A=4A and all that good stuff. America has dropped its standereds. The true problem is most people think of the now and not the later. If you only think of the now then later you will fail. But if you only think of the later then you will also fail. You need to be able to think of the future and the present. But no body is willing to do that today. Every one just thinks of the now.

[paperflowers11]

<-- (Is the product of a prep school and has nothing to complain about.)

What does IB stand for though? I have never heard of that, and I don't think we have it in Mass. I know that when I was in public school I HATED it. The teachers mostly just were terrible and did not care. The school I'm at now is amazing, primarily because the teachers really do care and don't just lecture day after day after day, all the classes are discussion-based. I can kiss that goodbye next year when I go to college, but I had it for four years and it was amazing. I actually LEARNED a lot and got really interested in everything that I learned. If public schools had smaller class sizes and better paid teachers I think that would certainly help. Who cares about school when the school doesn't care about you?

[phyro989]

Originally Posted by paperflowers11

<-- (Is the product of a prep school and has nothing to complain about.)

What does IB stand for though? I have never heard of that, and I don't think we have it in Mass. I know that when I was in public school I HATED it. The teachers mostly just were terrible and did not care. The school I'm at now is amazing, primarily because the teachers really do care and don't just lecture day after day after day, all the classes are discussion-based. I can kiss that goodbye next year when I go to college, but I had it for four years and it was amazing. I actually LEARNED a lot and got really interested in everything that I learned. If public schools had smaller class sizes and better paid teachers I think that would certainly help. Who cares about school when the school doesn't care about you?

IB means second hour first semester

[GuidoHunter]

Originally Posted by phyro989

IB means second hour first semester

WHAT? IB means International Baccalaureate.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[waffydude]

Originally Posted by phyro989

You hit the head on the nail. And also they are not teaching at the correct speed they should be. Like say when you start to learn 2+2=4 then you should learn 2A+2A=4A and all that good stuff. America has dropped its standereds.

You're not going to see kids learning about variables at the same time as learning addition, because it's a much more abstract idea. Typically, children psychologically aren't ready for such ideas for at least a few more years. It's sort of like developmental restrictions infants and toddlers often have (for example, object permanence, babies not understanding the idea that an object still exists just because it's being hidden from them, as in a game of peekaboo). Similarly, the brains of most children just aren't ready for the more abstract idea of algebra in those early grades.

I'll admit that they could teach something like algebra maybe a couple years earlier than the norm (and some more specialized schools do), but there are realistic constraints involved. It's not as simple as you may think it seems.

The true problem is most people think of the now and not the later. If you only think of the now then later you will fail. But if you only think of the later then you will also fail. You need to be able to think of the future and the present. But no body is willing to do that today. Every one just thinks of the now.

I agree with this. Most students have the mentality of "oh, I need to know this for the end of the week, so after that it doesn't matter."

This is just like someone else was saying about learning stuff, getting tested, and forgetting about it. This is more often the student's fault, though. As long as you're old enough, it's all on you as far as actually studying the information so that you can retain it (and if you do like the teachers actually say and study, yes, you will retain so much more later). Besides final exams that may test you on past stuff from the class, what more is a teacher to do? I often see kids complain about this same thing, never remembering stuff from past classes. And the reason is most of them just didn't take enough responsibility for it at the time.

[YungYung]

Originally Posted by waffydude

I agree with this. Most students have the mentality of "oh, I need to know this for the end of the week, so after that it doesn't matter."

This is just like someone else was saying about learning stuff, getting tested, and forgetting about it. This is more often the student's fault, though. As long as you're old enough, it's all on you as far as actually studying the information so that you can retain it (and if you do like the teachers actually say and study, yes, you will retain so much more later). Besides final exams that may test you on past stuff from the class, what more is a teacher to do? I often see kids complain about this same thing, never remembering stuff from past classes. And the reason is most of them just didn't take enough responsibility for it at the time.

And that is where we must look at why students pick the classes they do. 90% of the time it's for the sake of passing the grade/getting into a certain college in university. It's rare that people take something for the sake of actually learning. It's the students who choose their classes based on that who will actually retain what's taught in class. It's noticeable because more often than not, you'll do better in things that interest you, and not so much in classes that you 'have to' take.

[slipstrike0159]

Well and they are getting better with that too. At my school they have upped the credits required for elective credits. This forces us to take classes that we want to take rather than ones we have to take. Like 2 science credits are required to graduate, but if say you take 3 years of science, than that extra credit goes towards electives.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by waffydude

You're not going to see kids learning about variables at the same time as learning addition, because it's a much more abstract idea. Typically, children psychologically aren't ready for such ideas for at least a few more years. It's sort of like developmental restrictions infants and toddlers often have (for example, object permanence, babies not understanding the idea that an object still exists just because it's being hidden from them, as in a game of peekaboo). Similarly, the brains of most children just aren't ready for the more abstract idea of algebra in those early grades.

I'll admit that they could teach something like algebra maybe a couple years earlier than the norm (and some more specialized schools do), but there are realistic constraints involved. It's not as simple as you may think it seems.



I agree with this. Most students have the mentality of "oh, I need to know this for the end of the week, so after that it doesn't matter."

This is just like someone else was saying about learning stuff, getting tested, and forgetting about it. This is more often the student's fault, though. As long as you're old enough, it's all on you as far as actually studying the information so that you can retain it (and if you do like the teachers actually say and study, yes, you will retain so much more later). Besides final exams that may test you on past stuff from the class, what more is a teacher to do? I often see kids complain about this same thing, never remembering stuff from past classes. And the reason is most of them just didn't take enough responsibility for it at the time.

Students shouldn't be in a locked cirriculum, and that would fix the whole 'most students can't understand algebra' thing. We know Piaget, when it came to child psychology, was wrong in many ways and that children develop must faster than he thought they did. We also know not all children follow the same set of developmental stages; that is very behaviorist and not true. SOME students may not be capable of learning algebra at a young age, but there are students that are capable of such things. A more open cirriculum where you can choose classes from an early age would develop better and more creative students.

Just for knowledge sakes, Kim Ung-Yong performed difficult calculus questions that he was not aware of before hand on TV, at age 3. Obviously mental development isn't exactly something set in stone.


And personally, most kids fall into the cramming cycle because of how horribly the cirriculum is presented. It's just not interactive and it's sort of anti evolutionary. You're forcing kids to sit in a desk and all learn the exact same way, but in reality 1. Kids don't all learn the same way and 2. Not all kids are born suited to learn in the same environment. Most kids would rather have more interactive learning styles. I don't think schools have changed enough with the times. I know personally I learn the most from professors that are constantly interacting with the class, showing demos, videos, performing experiments or bringing students down to give examples of how things really work. And then the opposite, I learn the least from professors that are dry and just stand there and write stuff and read off their slides. Some people learn by copying notes and sitting for extremely long periods of time listening to stuff, but I sure don't. I learn by really interacting with what I'm learning and seeing it done. Half the time it isn't even worth going to class; notes don't do anything for me, I don't 'learn' by writing things down.


People start to get sick of the same boring stuff, and then arn't interested in what they're learning. When that happens, there is no desire to learn the material, and one ends up cramming for the sole purpose of passing the test.

[RandomPscho]

It's just not interactive and it's sort of anti evolutionary. You're forcing kids to sit in a desk and all learn the exact same way, but in reality 1. Kids don't all learn the same way and 2. Not all kids are born suited to learn in the same environment. Most kids would rather have more interactive learning styles.

Some of my teachers are starting to have random classes for different learners. One class will be all note and lecturing for the hour and a half (my school has block scheduling, you have every class every other day) and then the next class will be like an arts and crafts fiasco with almost no point. We get less material this way. My school also forces us to take 4 english credits, 3 math, 3 science, 4 social studies, and 4 gym credits. Then we also need 4 elective credits, so we cant take all the classes that we actually want to take. I notice that there is a huge difference at my school between the accellerated classes and the regents(state-wide) classes. The standard regents is so slow and brief, you want to kill yourself sitting through the class. I like the more information from the AP or just "enriched" classes my school offers, it doesnt make it hard, just more interesting.