American Education: Need I say more?

[TMA_1]

Me and phage were talking about this over IM, and I was just thinking about it.

In america, our school system frankly sucks. A huge example is on the issue of evolution. I dont claim to be an expert, but I know enough to get the fundimentals. Whenever I was at highschool though and somebody was arguing both for or against evolution, they totally messed upon the basic idea of what macro evolution is all about!

I remember talking to this kid who explained that (paraphrasing) "evolution took our genes, and mutated them because our environment told us we had to be intelligent". That is about how silly he worded it, and that is the basic idea he had. this isnt just about one person, most people I know believe this. many people get this idea that somehow evolution is a sentient picker and chooser. That it "sees" that an animal needs to turn green just say, because the trees and their bark were green (silly example). People get this notion that somehow it is a selective and highly intelligent process. I have also had to discuss the ideas of people who will call me irrational for saying that there is good chance there is no life out in space, or at least not close to us. They say stuff along this line "there are millions of stars out there! there is bound to be life." It seems now days that kids dont even recieve proper science training. All they get is assumption and opinion, and extremely basic fundimentals. The problem though is when they get these fundimentals, they will try and rationalize how it works from there, and come up with their own twisted notion of how it works.

Other examples have to do with History. Most of you out there are history buffs, I frankly love history, but only know a few specific times and that is it, I think it is foolish to study every single history of the world. Now days people are absolutely dense with this!

I remember jsut last quarter in college actually. We were studying world war I history, and happened to skirt the issue of the new air outfits that existed in both allied and enemy powers. the girl then said, and I am not joking, "Is this the war where we lost to the kamakazis?"

I remember that me and a friend almost laughed in the middle of class, we didnt as it owuld be downright arrogant. The teacher though was not too happy.

Its just sad to see how there are misconceptions in our education. I think also that with such a blessing of strong minds here at fed2k, it is kinda silly to compete like we always do. all the time I will see people trying to one up eachother. ego should be pushed out of it.

[Acriku]

I don't see how thinking there might be life outside of this earth is a misconception. Life doesn't take that much to start, the components are floating around everywhere in space, and if it finds the right conditions it multiplies. It may not be the life we are accustomed to, but life nonetheless.

[TMA_1]

Life doesn't take that much to start

good gravy man, go back to school.lol

[Acriku]

Eh? You get self-replicating RNA (where hydrogen, sugar molecules, and phosphates are all found in space), and under certain conditions it can evolve. The universe has been around for 12-14 billion years, that's a lot of time for life to start.

[TMA_1]

oh yeah, just self replicating over 40 thousand different codes in near perfect order from hundreds upon undreds of amino acid molecules. no big deal. ;) you hold life very cheaply. I suggest reading Rare Earth. It is an extremely good book, and blows down a lot of the ideas that popular science comes up with. also castigates so call scientists like isaac asimov who use their assumptions to claim there are thousands upon thousands of sentient races in space. evolutionarily speaking, life is precious and fragile. It is only resiliant when it actually begins to thrive. You are talking about construction or RNA which in turn becomes DNA, for blueprints to be reduplicated. that isnt even life! you still have to continue the process with hundreds upon hundreds of seemingly rare variables. good gravy train.

[Acriku]

TMA, whatever did happen to begin life for this earth billions of years ago, you can't escape the fact that it did happen. So, why can't it happen somewhere else? Thinking that there can't be aliens is just another consequence of the egocentric attitude we have had for thousands of years.

Is Rare Earth scientifically supported, and cites their sources? If so, I might check it out. If not, it's just another opinion from the public.

And the things you say it does is highly questionable. Why castigate a scientist who writes FICTION? It's fiction TMA, did that ever occur to the author?

Again, you keep thinking that life outside of earth will be like the life we have now. That's just bogus. We don't know what could happen in this universe. We know what happened with us, and what requires us to live and evolve, but that's within the open system of Earth.

[TMA_1]

do you know anything about isaac asimov? he is the man that came up with a mathematical calculation that expressed there are thousands of planets inhabited by alien life. Egocentric? no, I just dont make blind assumptions. funny that you do though, in many ways I would make a better rationalist then you would ever expect.

[Acriku]

I figured he was referring to his novels, I, Robot series and Foundation. :P

[Phage]

Well the issue of how probable life is as of now is very unpredictable. Nobody knows really. Because for mathematical formula to apply, the entities and their relationships have to be well understood. And we just don't know enough about biology at this point to apply such mathematical precision.

In any event I agree our schools have some short-comings. But they are better then anything seen in the past and they do have a lot of success teaching certain basic pieces of knowledge, like atoms, reading, math, excercising, some literature and basic history. Of course that's not good enough for where I want it to be though.

[Caid Ivik]

I would search for errors in US education elsewhere. Maybe in geography. TMA, ask your classmates where is Slovakia. I hope at least one won't say it is in Russia...

[Dante]

It hapens evrywer els as wel[

Hour Edyookateshun sistem iz reelee underr-fund-d ande so evreewun is stoopid? Ecsept us<

Seriously though, education levels are dropping because the difficult subjects are becoming harder for the stupid people. And the stupid people are stupid because the easy subjects pander to them! Soon we'll all be surrounded by gibbering monkey-children.

Either that or geniuses which is way scarey because I'll lose my world-dictator job...

[nemafakei]

Many people in this country say examinations are becoming easier. This, however, is not the truth. More people are doing better (due to better teaching and that on average students are working much harder, and are more used to examination, and that the papers are more clearly worded), but in many cases, the subjects are only being taught to curriculum, no more, and, in many cases, pupils are basically only taught how to pass exams.

I wonder what they do in US Geography? What was it, a third of those polled there not remotely knowing where Afghanistan was?

[Acriku]

I'm proud to say that Florida has been improving a lot in education, thanks to Jeb Bush ;D

[Dante]

Oh, brilliant. Soon we'll have a brainwashed army of schoolchildren for the Bush Administration...

[nemafakei]

I think 'washed' is the wrong imagery, here.

[TMA_1]

We arent as focused on education as other nations. It seems that we are too fixed upon personal matters of other nations than our own. Doesnt anybody agree that we spend way too much time dealing with international affairs, and not enough with the homefront? Even new beurocracies are being made like "homeland security" which has to do with protecting americans from international attacks towards us. This is not only paranoia, it is a waste of money and is a direct assult against our rights as americans.

Now days we want to destroy tyrany and evil throughout the world. we want to be the hero for those nations that we think need help. some of them do too, but at the expense of forgetting about american citizens? Americans come first, then other people come second. that is the whole point of nationalism. We should be strongly focused on international affairs and helping others, dont get me wrong. But we are becoming tyrannical towards other nations, and then let so many domestic issues go crap. Education is a good example. Instead of increasing the spending on specific important needs for the children, not the teachers, like afterschool programs, special education rebuilding, civic and community service and whatnot.

Even though he was a flawed president in many ways, I still love his ideals. LBJ, though kept us in Viet nam, actually tried and did some wonderful things for the american people. Instead of declaring "war on terrorism" like tyrannical baboons, LBJ declared war on poverty in america. He struck at the issues that plagued america most at it's time. It is time now to help the people of america. Unemployment is rising bigtime, the economy is doing its usual downward dip, good government programs to help the poor and needy are being cut. ALl of this is happening and it isnt just the fault of one party either. ALmost all the parties are guilty of such a lack of priorities. it just is really sad.

[nemafakei]

"Americans come first, then other people come second. that is the whole point of nationalism"

Well, it certainly seems to everywhere else that that is the mindset of your government. But in a slightly different sense.

The problem seems to be that the goverment is too concerned with making sure people can profit, and not concerned enough about protecting people from being profited from.

The problem with politicians is that they don't seem to know when and where to spend money on useful projects. Our major problem is that our government has gone the other way - spent lots of money, and issued lots of directives, but made no changes to the real limiting factors in the public services. As a result, everywhere has targets that can't be met due to red tape, and in some places, targets chosen are met be engineering the process (cutting waiting lists by treating not those who need it most, but those whose operations are quickest and simplest).

"ALmost all the parties"

The plethora that exists... heh!

[TMA_1]

yes you are right. It seems that the government is so impersonal and so beurocratic, that it cant follow the needs of the individuals, only help group collectives. The sad thing is usually those collectives are the people who dont need help like others. The people who are poor generally are accidentally or purposefully cast out of the collective because people dont wish to lag behind. they themselves want to say ahead, dont wish to help those who they need to. It is too much work and too much a waste of money and time for those who are more fortunate. There are some though who are fortunate and are a godsend to people. Look at the philantropists during the late 19th century in england. Rich and well off people actually tried to help the poor. Making orphanages that really made a difference, taking children from abusive orphanages, taking them away from abusive jobs that would make them work in coal mines and other dangerous places. Taking families from hostile environments so that they could live in peace. Not all who ar well off are bad. far from it, many are good. Still though collectively, because the government is not efficiant and percise, so many people are left behind, and many rich people are just too selfish to lag behind to help those who need to be helped foreword. those who are left behind.

[SurlyPIG]

I heard somewhere that 30% of American high school students couldn't find their country on an unlabeled map of the world's countries.

As to the title of this thread, isn't the term, "American Education" becoming more of an oxymoron?

[ordos45]

I'm proud to say that Florida has been improving a lot in education, thanks to Jeb Bush ;D

Didn't you have 11,000 seniors fail their senior year last year due to failing exit exams?

As for evolution and creation, I'll say this again. They both take faith to believe. So let's look at Creation:

-God already existed

-He created the universe.

Evolution (Well Big Bang actually, add evolution yourself):

-The universe occurred from a big explosion.

-This explosion came from nothing (scientifically impossible).

-If you try the whole anti-matter, billions of years to explode thing, then there still was that which caused the explosion that was there before.

[Acriku]

Well, we may not have improved in that area, but middle school and such ;)

And I'll say something towards the second part since it involves school education...

It only takes faith when there is no evidence that you are aware of. There is actually evidence of evolution, and of the big bang (although the evidence could lead to something else at any time).

And I'm curious as to how you deem an explosion out of nothing is scientifically impossible (note: not fire explosion)?

-If you try the whole anti-matter, billions of years to explode thing, then there still was that which caused the explosion that was there before.

If spacetime was created with matter, would there be a before? There was no time before the bigbang, so there's no before.

[ordos45]

If spacetime was created with matter, would there be a before? There was no time before the bigbang, so there's no before.

Ah, so basically there was nothing before, because there's no before, if there is no spacetime. (Hey can we go teach a class on quantum theory, my Chem teacher went nuts trying to figure out my extra credit assignment on wormhole theories?) In a strange way, sensical.

Fire being an explosion...let me see if I can recount this correctly from the science books. Fire is a reaction. Substance is changing from wood and heat, to heat, light, smoke, and ash. It loses none of its matter, and all the changes are physical, making it a physical reaction. So it doesn't come out of nothing, its just a change in form.

[Acriku]

Well I said it wasn't a fire explosion... hmm...

[ordos45]

Sorry, tired. Anyhow, how is it scientifically impossible for something to explode out of nothing? I think its the "Law of Conservation of Mass" or something like that, stating that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Or for the expanded version which lends you credence, Matter cannot be created or destroyed during normal conditions. (The atomic bomb rewriting the law.)

[TMA_1]

you talk of evidance acriku and there is some Kind of evidance, that is the key word. The kind of evidance is indirect. Much of this indirect evidance is subject to opinion andrationaliziation. Dont confuse that with actually deducing something to it's core parts. Because of this, many scientists look for the best explanation using rationalization. It is still up for grabs though whether or not it is correct. the scientific method was not built to prove things right or wrong flat out. It was built so non objective scientists can approch something and study it, eventually making it credable enough to be one of MANY theories that explains something. and even then the method teaches to rework it and rework it till it is either thrown aside or built even stronger. There is no fact though.