Education Reform & Discussion - Discuss Problems w/ Various Forms of Education & Propose Solutions

[Yugica]

It seems to be a common thing that I run into in discussions about school and education that a variety of problems exist therein. There are also ongoing crises amongst the youth, like the "literacy crisis" in the US. I personally am very much in favor of reforms to the education system. I think that the memetic descendants of the Prussian Education System are detrimental in the modern era. I think their time and place was during the ever modernization of Europe and the Americas, where it helped to push for broader opportunities and education for the rural masses and more urban alike. However in modern times it seems that it is largely just a system to stamp and mold people to believe certain things and just remember and regurgitate information and facts -- information and facts that they often times will completely forget about not long after they leave school. I imagine there's also a great discussion that could be had about the commercialization of various public education matters, like with textbooks and lobbying for certain things to be taught.

I also have my own beliefs and an idea for an educational system, but I'll spoiler it so as to not make the OP absolutely massive.

Spoiler: Some idiot's educational system beliefs and idea

I'll first start by listing the beliefs that I hold and that I believe my idea of an educational system will induce into its pupils for their betterment.

• Healthy competition(that is competition without major, long-term consequences) is a potent driving force for development in anyone, even children. Competition should be encouraged when it won't demoralize, harm or distract a child from other vital lessons/experiences. In cases where it can be incorporated into those vital lessons and experiences then it is even more wonderful.

• Responsibility and self-reliance are absolutely essential things to distill into growing children and teenagers. The result of a lack of vital lessons and experiences giving one a sense of responsibility or a capability to be self-reliant is to make more childish adults who're dependent and vulnerable to the predations of the state, cults or nefarious people(s). A lack of responsibility in an adult will also make for exceptionally harmful individuals that affect their peers, society as a whole and their loved ones.

• Cooperation and getting along are absolutely essential for the functioning of civilization and are necessary for the vast majority of adults to function in their day-to-day lives. Teamwork and broader group activities when done in conjunction of either competing or achieving a goal together are thus very useful in helping children to become better people.

• Self-determination is essential for the flourishing of a person. The delayment of introspection and retrospection on what one wants to do in their life is detrimental to children and will cause turmoil in their adult lives. Therefore it is essential that children can explore various kinds of professions, careers and interests to come to understand what they love to do best or what they're incredibly good at.

Now, with that all out of the way, I'll explain my school model. Firstly my idea sees schools as "play nations", little micronations that are all orchestrated and interacted with by the larger staff for the educational system. Each school simulates its own economy(even coming with play money), trade with other schools, its own politics and even wargames and media production. The staff beyond the teachers work like dungeon masters in a DnD game and also overseers to look for maladaptive/predatory behavior amongst students in order to weed it out. They work to provide interesting events too that play penalties or boons to certain parts of these play nations and also facilitate the exchange of goods, information and so on between them.

Teachers take on the role of mentors and guides for students and a number of classes are available to fulfill different niches of society. A very young child interested in farming would first start out with class assignments where they might plant beans and get them to grow whilst a teenager might actually be in the field(s) or garden sowing seeds or handling livestock to harvest. The teachers not only grade their students based on how they perform these assignments but also on what can be measured from their work. Crops harvested end up being sold with the makeshift currency of the school/play nation to cooks or other schools. In this method students develop responsibility(as a farmer raising their crops to harvest must be responsible for them), self-determination(as children can shift and move between these kinds of classes and their work directly pays off not only for their grades but also for the little economies the school/play nation has and their own direct benefit) and self-reliance as these career-based classes actively work to provide tangible goods and services.

Students would also be capable of experimenting and participating in learning various other professions. If a kid doesn't like being a farmer then he can quickly join up to the soldier class to try that out. If they decide they don't like being a soldier and liked being a farmer more then they can simply re-attend their farming classes and get caught up on what they missed. They don't need to be limited to just one profession/class either.

The amount of careers and kinds of classes are subject to change but should reflect or even be shaped by the students in charge of their play nation(those basically playing the leader of their play nation who should be comprised of students who are nearing graduation age or will graduate next year as they would be most capable), but at the very least they should include farmers, craftsmen, intellectuals(who I haven't talked about much here but would be getting the more higher level education and competing in R&D settings where they're tasked with solving difficult problems or creating complex things for some play scenario for their nation) and soldiers. The amount to which the students can influence the culture and politics of their play nations gives a secondary benefit to society outside of the education of their children in that they allow for experimentation with various ideas towards careers and governance in a far less harmful setting should they prove bad. The downside I can see with this however is that graduates are not held responsible for the problems they may have induced in their former school. It would be necessary for faculty to step in and prevent disasters that could harm the student body at large due to the student politicians as well.

Beyond this there is also the very mandatory core of education. Which would be:

• Language arts: This provides for basic literacy and also an understanding for things relating to literature. It'd help to expand one's vernacular too.
• Mathematics: The absolute essentials are provided for here. Addition, subtraction &c.. There would also be courses and lessons focused on the application of math as a tool in their day-to-day lives and for their careers as well. I'd argue that basic engineering principles are important too, like understanding leverage and different types of material strengths, but I am also someone generally interested in engineering and so I am biased. I'd also argue statistics and probabilities are very critical to learn.
• Science: The understanding of what we know of the material world and very critically the usage and implementation of the scientific method. Experimentation would be a key element to this core class.
• Civics/Home economics: A class specifically aimed at teaching children to be able to manage their own household and to navigate the government. It would also teach very basic understandings for skills like cooking or DIY crafting.
• History & Politics: A class meant to teach students about the history of their nation and the broad strokes of the history of the world as well as certain political systems and the philosophies and ideals behind at least their own government.

Now I will also mention that these core classes aren't meant to be equally taught -- that is that they aren't meant to take up the same amount of a student's time as each other. They are essential but the essential part is in delivering critical lessons to the students and not on just occupying their time and trying to cram information into their heads. Not every day needs to see them going to their math class, to help clarify what I mean.

Finally though is the competition and cooperation angle to this system. As these are "play nations", they will act like such on the larger scale. A good deal of focus is to be put into the wars(trade or mock wars) and conflicts the schools are to be put into, as well as their other relations. The purpose of this is to get the students invested and cooperating as a group for the betterment of their school, not only because it's their team in a sense, but because the ramifications of these conflicts induce penalties or bonuses to their school/play nation. A play nation who loses a mock war may have to pay war indemnities and so the students have to give up a portion of their play money to pay that back, thus the winning nation gets a benefit to that. I do find myself concerned with students potentially harassing their fellow classmates who fail them, although I'd hope that the teachers would be diligent enough to get them to not bicker or whine and to remind them that it's ultimately a kind of game and for them to get along.

Through these mechanisms though I think that this schooling system would help to raise children to be capable adults with very useful life experience for their respective career(s). The freedom they have to seek out their own self-determination with exploring various classes or experimenting with various assignments is also I think a great boon that the traditional education system today lacks for most students. I'd argue that the grading and scoring system also should not be a rigid 0-100 scoring system but instead a statistical one where the achievements/capabilities of a student are weighed against their year's stats to show how relatively capable they are or aren't.

Please discuss your own ideas about the educational system and any ideas or systems you've heard about or know. I've recently been made aware of the concept of Waldorf-based education thanks to @Napoleon III in the Sneedchat and would love to hear about or know more about other educational systems.

 

[DumbDude43]

fuck waldorf schools they are full of delusional hippie retards

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You and I agree with the notion that the Prussian-style education model is kinda shit
This top-down factory-like structure has shaped not just how kids learn, but also what they're taught to regard as valuable or true
It's hard to separate that from the broader context of systems designed to produce compliance, not independent thought

I'd be cautious with the idea of "reform" in the usual sense
There's a difference between changing how obedience is taught and questioning why obedience is the presumed goal in the first place
The push for standardization, central control, and curriculum monopolies (often through textbook cartels or credentialing rackets) are not like a bug or operational incident, they are deeply baked into the structure

Some of the more interesting alternatives I have seen don't just change the content or method, but rethink what education is when it's free from this kind of institutional coercion
Self-directed models, voluntary learning networks, even the idea of education as a service subject to market forces, all of these change the question from "how do we shape the child?" to "how do we respect the learner?"

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Issue with any school reforms is that they are usually worse:
* Trying to help every kid just holds back everyone. Ideally with enough teachers you could at least help the weaker students before they fuck their life up, but unless you replace them with AI (which is not impossible) then the cost is too high and impractical.
* Having children choose what they are going to do in the future is potentially catastrophic, as them choosing wrong can hold up their entire life.
* Any monetary based education system just means the children of the elite get to keep their place and social mobility is shit.
* A lot of the alternatives to repetition based education is just some faggot delusions.

In the end the only reform needed is having parents actually function as parents, not just throwing their children into school as a glorified day care center and maybe speak to them a sentence a day.

 

[David Brown]

In the modern era of liability and insurance it's probably not possible, but I think it would be cool if schools spent more time with kids being outside learning outdoors skills. Gardening, camping, hunting, plant identification, etc. National curricula don't really serve anybody outside of learning to read, write, and do arithmetic. I know I would have benefitted from that type of education.

A while back I was discussing this topic with a boomer coworker and I suggested that since high school education is largely useless in terms of education retention, the curriculum should be changed. As an example I said, "I mean, how many kids come out of high school not knowing how to change a tire or do simple handyman work around the house?" and he said "Hell no, schools shouldn't be teaching that. Those skills should be learned at home!" Okay then what the hell is the point of school if you aren't going to learn anything useful????

 

[Soso]

The schools in my area have mostly been destroyed by doing equity or whatever they called it. So far it has been a disaster and many teachers have quit, and plenty of parents are seeking out private schools because of how bad things have gotten.

• Inclusion became the main controversy. Instead of keeping tards, especially the nonverbal violent ones, in separate classrooms with dedicated teachers and wranglers, they have put them into mainstream classrooms. This has become such an issue that some kindergartners this school year were afraid of attending because of violent tards in their class attacking them and flinging chairs at them. Teachers cannot punish the tards either, and it's made very difficult if they have an IEP. Middle school and high school isn't any better due to tards disrupting their classes, and it has been out of control.
• Teachers in this school district cannot punish like they used to. Zero tolerance sucks, and now they went the opposite direction where they can't punish anyone. A student attacks a teacher unprovoked or disrupts the entire class? They go to a PBIS room the elementary school set up, and/or if not at the elementary school, one of the behavioral specialists (who most teachers and other staff hate) works with them to write an apology letter. It's gotten to a point where some of my teacher friends tell me the students yell"Just send me to Ms. So and So, she never punishes me." And they are right, they get to eat a snack and just talk about their feelings for the class period.
• AP classes are now available to anyone, including students who can barely read. The high school only did this to brag about 100% enrollment in AP courses, and I assume something similar happened at the middle school for the honors and high school credit classes. Now we have students sitting around doing fuck all in AP classes who shouldn't be there, and the students who should have been in the AP and honors courses are now in the regular classrooms which are also being disrupted constantly.

I have no idea how to reform this mess to be fair. There's a lot more that happened like the Teachers' Union drama, and it's a shame how the school district went from excellent to quickly declining. It's also just not the schools, but how are you going to deal with parents who refuse to parent and want to be their kids best friends? It feels there is no winning.

 

[Yugica]

* Having children choose what they are going to do in the future is potentially catastrophic, as them choosing wrong can hold up their entire life.

Yeah, that's why for my idea I tried to keep it not so rigid and with escalating levels of realism. Growing a bean sprout in a pot isn't anywhere near time as consuming or soul draining as the more real farm work they'd do as teenagers and it's a totally different game. But with the idea that kids can just swap to experiment with other professions and be caught up to their grade's level in a shorter time frame I'd hope that it'd help in letting kids learn better what they do or don't want and also how important the choices can be because of all of the work they'd have to do to make up for lost time. The sunk cost fallacy would be a problem though.

* Any monetary based education system just means the children of the elite get to keep their place and social mobility is shit.

The money that they make in that school, that play money, is from their direct work. They can't have their parents buy it or anything, if you're referring to the money in my idea. If you are referring to my idea though, I can see the problems that could be had if parents were paying their kid's classmates to try and boost their grades or get them other bonuses. I'd just list that as a reason to expel that student and leave a permanent mark on their record though of "this kid's parent tried to cheat the system".

I'd argue though that the elite don't need their kids to do well in school for them to become elites themselves. Nepotism would still be a factor regardless since their parents could just make backroom deals to get their kid employed somewhere.

Teachers in this school district cannot punish like they used to. Zero tolerance sucks, and now they went the opposite direction where they can't punish anyone. A student attacks a teacher unprovoked or disrupts the entire class? They go to a PBIS room the elementary school set up, and/or if not at the elementary school, one of the behavioral specialists (who most teachers and other staff hate) works with them to write an apology letter. It's gotten to a point where some of my teacher friends tell me the students yell"Just send me to Ms. So and So, she never punishes me." And they are right, they get to eat a snack and just talk about their feelings for the class period.

I can't help but wonder if some of the cause of that is lawsuits targeted at schools in the past. Regardless the overcorrection is awful and I've seen videos of kids(guess the race) attacking teachers in class, it's saddening.

AP classes are now available to anyone, including students who can barely read. The high school only did this to brag about 100% enrollment in AP courses, and I assume something similar happened at the middle school for the honors and high school credit classes. Now we have students sitting around doing fuck all in AP classes who shouldn't be there, and the students who should have been in the AP and honors courses are now in the regular classrooms which are also being disrupted constantly.

I imagine for the students in those classes that actually are genuinely advanced they feel a sense of "why bother?". If they can try and work hard and it won't matter then what's the point of striving or trying harder? Equity is a toxic ideal that punishes those who excel and work hard and rewards the violent and lazy in just about any example of it being implemented that I've seen.

 

[Soso]

I can't help but wonder if some of the cause of that is lawsuits targeted at schools in the past. Regardless the overcorrection is awful and I've seen videos of kids(guess the race) attacking teachers in class, it's saddening.

The race here that typically attacks are natives, and the very few niggers. Most of the natives wind up dropping out, and get real nasty with teachers fast. Their parents tell them school isn't worth it, so they come in and act like it isn't worth it. Mind you a good portion of them can barely read and skip class to fight. They wind up going to the job corps (which I don't know if it's going to last judging if they shut them all down or not), and there's such a racial divide there between the white trash students and the natives. The tard issue remains the biggest issue though with how teachers are expected to do two jobs at once, and there's other stuff like recent migrants not speaking English. I genuinely don't blame some teachers for walking out at the end of the year. You cannot expect them to be teachers, therapists, language teachers, and tard wranglers all in one.

I imagine for the students in those classes that actually are genuinely advanced they feel a sense of "why bother?". If they can try and work hard and it won't matter then what's the point of striving or trying harder? Equity is a toxic ideal that punishes those who excel and work hard and rewards the violent and lazy in just about any example of it being implemented that I've seen.

Oh they are very frustrated! They wind up acting out too in the regular classes, and sometimes I don't blame them for acting out in frustration because like you said, they don't see a point anymore. If the class mouthbreather lucks out and gets into AP courses, and they don't, I understand them being sick of it. The lucky ones I believe opted to one of the private schools, but it gets more difficult to transfer when they get older.

 

[ChefBourgeoisie]

"Education reform" assumes that education's purpose is one that we all agree on and that only some adjustments are needed to accomplish those goals. But the purpose of education isn't to teach children things they need to learn, and it never has been. I cannot reform it, because it is already accomplishing what it sets out to do. It prohibits some large fraction of the population from working who also happen to be the same fraction who have no legal right to vote so that the voters have less competition in the job market. It propagandizes to the most gullible. It destroys families by injecting the government between parent and child and making the child dependent on the government rather than the parent. It has never failed, not even a little, at any of these things.

Asking about "reform" marks you a fool.

 

[Yugica]

The race here that typically attacks are natives

From what you're saying it seems like there's not a whole lot of hope on their part. They seem incompatible with civilization in general. Special education to segregate tards from the rest of the students and put them in the hands of people who can actually wrangle them is definitely a must. The tards set a bad example for the rest of the kids and trying to have a teacher wrangle them in the middle of class is going to cause issues too with students not respecting their teachers when they fail/have to deal with them or being intimidated/upset if the teacher is actually harsh on the tardling. It's too much for the teacher(s) too, I agree.

Oh they are very frustrated! They wind up acting out too in the regular classes, and sometimes I don't blame them for acting out in frustration because like you said, they don't see a point anymore. If the class mouthbreather lucks out and gets into AP courses, and they don't, I understand them being sick of it. The lucky ones I believe opted to one of the private schools, but it gets more difficult to transfer when they get older.

I imagine some of those kids belong to families who might not be able to afford sending them to a private school either and many probably wouldn't be lucky or capable enough to get scholarships(especially with how many scholarships seemed aimed at more equity shit and prioritize minorities, although I don't know if that's the case where you live). The cope at the end of the tunnel in this case is that those kids are likely to be pretty influential in society(due to their capabilities) and their first hand experience is going to sour their taste to equity shit. It gives some hope that this'll be corrected in a generation or two.

 

[Napoleon III]

Healthy competition(that is competition without major, long-term consequences) is a potent driving force for development in anyone, even children

Teachers in this school district cannot punish like they used to

Let me just say that there is basically no way to make education/learning "fun" and make education non-coercive. Education is work and while you can make it less not fun by attaching things along with it that are fun it will always be something you need to force children to do. A thousand great thinkers from Plato to Dewey have tried and failed. There is value in the sugar makes the medicine go down easier approach of finding a bunch of methods to make it less painful.

Firstly my idea sees schools as "play nations", little micronations that are all orchestrated and interacted with by the larger staff for the educational system. Each school simulates its own economy(even coming with play money), trade with other schools, its own politics and even wargames and media production. The staff beyond the teachers work like dungeon masters in a DnD game and also overseers to look for maladaptive/predatory behavior amongst students in order to weed it out. They work to provide interesting events too that play penalties or boons to certain parts of these play nations and also facilitate the exchange of goods, information and so on between them.

I'll say this is sort of a good idea but it is incredibly specific. Using the force of competition is a good idea. But I will say decentralization would be a really good idea. Both because it would allow a lot of different schools to develop techniques that work and because it would make administration easier.

I would say that if you wanted to implement your plan you'd want to go in steps making sure what you are doing works at each step rather than going full force immediately.

* Having children choose what they are going to do in the future is potentially catastrophic, as them choosing wrong can hold up their entire life.

Sort of. We don't know what the dominant form of employment will be in the future. In the 20th Century it was college educated professionals or blue collar workers and so that made it very easy to just make everyone got what you needed to go to college and if you didn't end up going to college you were fine as you'd learn on the job.

I suspect the future will be semi-technical semi-blue collar technical work with something like maintaining robots or automated systems with some amount of college educated professionals. But only time will tell.

In the end the only reform needed is having parents actually function as parents, not just throwing their children into school as a glorified day care center and maybe speak to them a sentence a day.

Yes this is a large part of the problem is Parents are bad. Part of this is just due to the fragmenting of society. People don't learn how to be a Parent and have trouble finding people who are good Parents to learn from.

Some of it is laziness and shitty-ness but definitely part of it is people just not knowing what to do.

A while back I was discussing this topic with a boomer coworker and I suggested that since high school education is largely useless in terms of education retention, the curriculum should be changed. As an example I said, "I mean, how many kids come out of high school not knowing how to change a tire or do simple handyman work around the house?" and he said "Hell no, schools shouldn't be teaching that. Those skills should be learned at home!" Okay then what the hell is the point of school if you aren't going to learn anything useful????

There are a lot of useless things that could be cut out in favor of more useful things. I do know the math classes teach compound interest and loans now which is good. It wouldn't be hard to take say every Friday and have the kids learn basic home education skills like cooking, changing a tire, how to do taxes etc.

Cooperation and getting along are absolutely essential for the functioning of civilization and are necessary for the vast majority

This is a MAJOR problem. I think a lot of people are socially isolated and I have noticed the younger generations being really bad at social interaction. I don't think it is simply genetic autism either. I think children aren't learning how to basically interact with each other socially.

Smartphones/ipads are partially to blame for this.

* Any monetary based education system just means the children of the elite get to keep their place and social mobility is shit.

I'm going to tell you this straight up. Unless you are in the process of deposing elites you are never going to remove the advantages Elite children have over other children. The best you can do is make it so that children that are pretty capable can be successful as well.

"Education reform" assumes that education's purpose is one that we all agree on and that only some adjustments are needed to accomplish those goals. But the purpose of education isn't to teach children things they need to learn, and it never has been. I cannot reform it, because it is already accomplishing what it sets out to do. It prohibits some large fraction of the population from working who also happen to be the same fraction who have no legal right to vote so that the voters have less competition in the job market. It propagandizes to the most gullible. It destroys families by injecting the government between parent and child and making the child dependent on the government rather than the parent. It has never failed, not even a little, at any of these things.

Any halfway decent society always has some method of transmitting its knowledge onto the next generation. In some ways this limits what children can/will believe but on the other hand that is normal and necessary.

Central authority is beginning to fall apart and the Totalitarian nightmares of the 20th century are ending. States that have the "you don't have a right to control your children" mentality are not going to be able to maintain themselves for much longer.

So it is worth asking what comes after.

fuck waldorf schools they are full of delusional hippie retards

Yeah they are pretty wacky, but on the other hand they Keep children from interacting with smartphones and ipads which is a really really good thing. Just because someone is a massive weirdo doesn't mean they haven't figured out anything useful you can steal for yourself.

 

[Overly Serious]

There's a lot that could be said here but I'll say a couple of things in the time I have right now.

Firstly, educational establishments should not be fulfilling the role of child care and should not be fulfilling the role of parents. A number of the problems in modern Western education stem from the State wanting it to do both of these things. For the first they want it so that women are in the labour force not "stay at home moms". Even "stay at home" is a loaded phrase meant to sound negative despite the evident benefits of having a parent with the time to handle the domestic side of a relationship and to spend more time with their child and - especially - more time to monitor and input onto how that child is influenced and educated. And for the second, fulfilling the role of parents, the State wants it so that they can instil the values that it prefers, over the parents'.

Another point is a specific case of those values and an insidious way they are instilled in children. This is the effort to stamp out personal responsibility for justice. And it is done very aggressively. To illustrate, if a child wrongs another child and that second child attempts to get redress himself - or on behalf of another - then both children will be punished and subtly the child that sought justice will be punished more. If someone hits you and you hit them back, the school will punish you. The lesson they are trying to teach you is that all justice must be dispensed by Authority and if you've been wronged you must petition Authority for justice. You must never try to seek justice yourself.

This is a bad lesson for many reasons and I'd happily expand on that, but the truest reason the educator does this is because there is one and only one thing Authority likes less than people who oppose it. And that is people who don't need it. Once you notice this being done to children and it's described explicitly, it's impossible to unsee. It's everywhere.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm going to tell you this straight up. Unless you are in the process of deposing elites you are never going to remove the advantages Elite children have over other children. The best you can do is make it so that children that are pretty capable can be successful as well.

It's less having children be a new elite, and more of having social mobility by giving children from poor families the tools to get high education. If you don't have it you have shitholes like the EU and UK that are in a massive technological stagnation.

Another point is a specific case of those values and an insidious way they are instilled in children. This is the effort to stamp out personal responsibility for justice. And it is done very aggressively. To illustrate, if a child wrongs another child and that second child attempts to get redress himself - or on behalf of another - then both children will be punished and subtly the child that sought justice will be punished more. If someone hits you and you hit them back, the school will punish you. The lesson they are trying to teach you is that all justice must be dispensed by Authority and if you've been wronged you must petition Authority for justice. You must never try to seek justice yourself.

This is a bad lesson for many reasons and I'd happily expand on that, but the truest reason the educator does this is because there is one and only one thing Authority likes less than people who oppose it. And that is people who don't need it. Once you notice this being done to children and it's described explicitly, it's impossible to unsee. It's everywhere.

I get your point but there are issues with it, children (and a good chunk of adults) have an issue to show restraint. Cursing another student and getting beat up in turn is pointless escalation that hurts the social cohesion. Teachers should (in theory) be able to deescalate the situation without resorting to violence.

I'd say the worst part in how it's done nowadays is that it's not equal, especially when minorities are involved. So the lessons kids take is that there is no justice if they are seen as majority.

 

[Yugica]

There is value in the sugar makes the medicine go down easier approach of finding a bunch of methods to make it less painful.

People do tend to love bittersweet things. Gotta love gritty stories with happy endings and chocolate .

I'll say this is sort of a good idea but it is incredibly specific. Using the force of competition is a good idea. But I will say decentralization would be a really good idea. Both because it would allow a lot of different schools to develop techniques that work and because it would make administration easier.

Glad you like it, it's hard for me to not be too specific sometimes though. One of the other benefits for it being decentralized is that the kinds of jobs and careers that kids will aspire to may differ wildly by region. I'd imagine a lot of kids would be inspired not just by role models on TV or fiction but also from their parents and broader family. I'd say it'd also be nice for more elective classes too, like for coastal schools to have sailing classes. I know I loved sailing when I was younger, even if it was just in a little dingy with a keel and sail mounted on.

I would say that if you wanted to implement your plan you'd want to go in steps making sure what you are doing works at each step rather than going full force immediately.

I agree. I think one of the best ways to do something like that would be having something like the boy scouts that partners up with groups of homeschooling parents for some socializing for the kids and of course getting them to learn how to do useful things and have fun. I know I've heard about more and more parents forming groups on Facebook for homeschooling before. This way it's by choice and I'd imagine parents might even want to join in with their kids, it'd be a nice bonding experience.

I suspect the future will be semi-technical semi-blue collar technical work with something like maintaining robots or automated systems with some amount of college educated professionals. But only time will tell.

I know this isn't directed at me, but I do want to say that I think a good portion of future professions might be centered around more personalized entertainment. I've gotten to see how some servers have been able to actually draw in a good amount of money through donations on a game like The Isle and with how many E-celebs are out there and the popularity of YouTubers and streamers I think their market could grow too. It'll have to rely on how prosperous this century ends up being though as all of that can only flourish if people have plenty of disposable income to give.

This is a MAJOR problem. I think a lot of people are socially isolated and I have noticed the younger generations being really bad at social interaction. I don't think it is simply genetic autism either. I think children aren't learning how to basically interact with each other socially.

Smartphones/ipads are partially to blame for this.

I've had some very mortifying experiences with younger Zoomers who have shown me just how much of their social life and socialization has come from online interactions and memes. I have a lot of concern that gen. Alpha is going to be even worse in that regard. I don't wanna get too doomer about all of that though but so many of the early 20s zoomers I've met aren't far from lolcowdom.

Firstly, educational establishments should not be fulfilling the role of child care and should not be fulfilling the role of parents. A number of the problems in modern Western education stem from the State wanting it to do both of these things.

I have been pretty hopeful about how much homeschooling is gaining popularity, although I have seen how some parents just utterly fail at this whilst growing up. The homeschooling groups that I've heard about are a ray of optimism though, as parents who don't know what they're doing and just starting out can quickly network with others who have been established in doing it. I also like it in the sense that parents who might be busy can have another parent in their little group cover for them for maybe a week or two. They can also work to get their kids to play and socialize with each other.

Long term I hope that if homeschooling does keep growing in popularity then the culture will shift towards not just being more open to it but also in being better at it. There could also be a whole discussion in relation to how we've shifted from households where a father could work to provide for his family to now needing dual-income households to have a family.

Another point is a specific case of those values and an insidious way they are instilled in children. This is the effort to stamp out personal responsibility for justice. And it is done very aggressively. To illustrate, if a child wrongs another child and that second child attempts to get redress himself - or on behalf of another - then both children will be punished and subtly the child that sought justice will be punished more. If someone hits you and you hit them back, the school will punish you. The lesson they are trying to teach you is that all justice must be dispensed by Authority and if you've been wronged you must petition Authority for justice. You must never try to seek justice yourself.

I hadn't even thought about that before, but thinking back on my time in school it's all making too much sense. On one hand though I can see the thinking behind why it might be like this with liability a school may have to face. Not even just legal liability as a lot of parents wouldn't be happy if schools always let kids try to meet out their own justice and people would quickly reference things like Lord of the Flies; children are petty. You can try and have parents mediate out the punishment but at the same time some parents are just so awful they won't punish their shitty kid who hurts others. Like father like son and all of that; kids who are awful are likely to come from likewise parents.

Another option is to have schools not provide equal punishment(but that again makes them responsible and thus liable if they fuck up and I imagine any school would want to worm their way out of that). Chide the kid who took matters into his own hands or punish him if he went too far and of course properly punish the wrongdoer. Shitty parents though will raise a fuss over their shitty kids being rightfully punished -- I've seen it firsthand growing up more than a few times. I even had some kid's parent wait until my parent left to stop me and threaten to kill me(I was about the same age as their kid mind you) because I didn't let them just hurt me and their kid got hurt because of it. To be fair though that wasn't at school, that was at a friend's house, but it's still just an example of how some parents are.

 

[Napoleon III]

It's less having children be a new elite, and more of having social mobility by giving children from poor families the tools to get high education. If you don't have it you have shitholes like the EU and UK that are in a massive technological stagnation.

Ah I see fair enough. I think it will be fairly easy for that type of social mobility to happen with stuff like online textbooks and electronic learning materials. Cost really isn't much of a factor in many cases.

I know this isn't directed at me, but I do want to say that I think a good portion of future professions might be centered around more personalized entertainment. I've gotten to see how some servers have been able to actually draw in a good amount of money through donations on a game like The Isle and with how many E-celebs are out there and the popularity of YouTubers and streamers I think their market could grow too. It'll have to rely on how prosperous this century ends up being though as all of that can only flourish if people have plenty of disposable income to give.

I disagree the reason social media influencers have blown up so much is it is one of the few ways you can do something that doesn't suck. I see extremely capable engineers spend time making youtube videos over nothing because they can't work on anything valuable or interesting. Once that goes away I suspect social media influencers will also decline.

I've had some very mortifying experiences with younger Zoomers who have shown me just how much of their social life and socialization has come from online interactions and memes. I have a lot of concern that gen. Alpha is going to be even worse in that regard. I don't wanna get too doomer about all of that though but so many of the early 20s zoomers I've met aren't far from lolcowdom.

Its going to be a divergence. Amongst Gen Alpha and Zoomers you either have really good capable children or children who have no future whatsoever.

Long term I hope that if homeschooling does keep growing in popularity then the culture will shift towards not just being more open to it but also in being better at it. There could also be a whole discussion in relation to how we've shifted from households where a father could work to provide for his family to now needing dual-income households to have a family.

Yeah I think a new education system will basically grow out of the homeschooling movement. It's in its infancy right now but once it grows it'll really figure out how to do well.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Not much else to say that hasn't been covered, but I think multi-generational family units being on the decline has affected the kids. I mean, especially with both parents having to work nowadays.

That being said, there's just so many damned incompetent parents that shit is infuriating. Yeah, the educational system is bad and the teachers can be ineffectual. But a lot of it can be made up for by the right influence from parents.

 

[Soso]

From what you're saying it seems like there's not a whole lot of hope on their part. They seem incompatible with civilization in general. Special education to segregate tards from the rest of the students and put them in the hands of people who can actually wrangle them is definitely a must. The tards set a bad example for the rest of the kids and trying to have a teacher wrangle them in the middle of class is going to cause issues too with students not respecting their teachers when they fail/have to deal with them or being intimidated/upset if the teacher is actually harsh on the tardling. It's too much for the teacher(s) too, I agree.

A good portion of the native kids, especially at high school, don't really attend and have truancy issues. Some of my friends tiptoe around the issues, but they hint they are relieved when they finally drop out. Their parents are nightmares even compared to the regular parents who want to be their child's best friend. The native parents just don't give a shit about the education in general, but they will stir shit when it benefits them. Administration is too scared to go against those parents since they can really raise hell if they have to.

The tard issue, I remember before I was born, there was a school that the tards went to that was really well ran. It was part of the public school system, but it was one huge life skills tard school. The parents loved it, the teachers and paras were caring, and the tards enjoyed going there. Like many things in the Carter-Reagan-HW Bush span, they eventually slowly got shut down which was then moving to the separate classroom, but on same campus. Now? It's just a free for all.

Its going to be a divergence. Amongst Gen Alpha and Zoomers you either have really good capable children or children who have no future whatsoever.

This is what I have noticed and my teacher friends see often. You have kids who enter elementary school who are prepared and are already reading and counting to high numbers, or the other end, you have parents who barely interacted with their children, never read, and used screens to parent 24/7. Horrifyingly enough, there is one extreme end where they send their kids to school in diapers expecting the teachers to toilet train their students. I know both parents working can be difficult, but they can at least be bothered to interact with their children. My father despite being a single dad to me made an effort about knowing what I did at school, reading to me, and asking about what I did, or going to what things my school did when work wasn't too busy for him.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

This is what I have noticed and my teacher friends see often. You have kids who enter elementary school who are prepared and are already reading and counting to high numbers, or the other end, you have parents who barely interacted with their children, never read, and used screens to parent 24/7. Horrifyingly enough, there is one extreme end where they send their kids to school in diapers expecting the teachers to toilet train their students. I know both parents working can be difficult, but they can at least be bothered to interact with their children. My father despite being a single dad to me made an effort about knowing what I did at school, reading to me, and asking about what I did, or going to what things my school did when work wasn't too busy for him.

one thing I've noticed is the higher amount of shitty parents that seem to exist nowadays.

But, uh, God forbid we address this, right?

 

[CryptoHermit]

https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-class-of-2026 / https://archive.ph/6NspN

Interesting essay I found on this topic from a Canadian chud on how the rampant abuse of AI in colleges will lead to eventual collapse of legitimacy of colleges for credentials to the point people will assume you're an outright fraud if you actually show up with a degree since AI use is now so prevalent. He supposes that as going to the gym has now become a high-status activity to do improve your physical ability eventually going to a tutor or "gym for the mind" will become seen as high-status as well if such a thing become established. With AI tools becoming ubiquitous in people's lives and off-loading all their mental acuity and effort onto them, the people who are proven to be able to think for themselves will be seen as high-status from the herd and going to a tutor to train you in any mental discipline or field will become common. Instead of having an hour session in dead-lifting you'll be learning rhetoric, calculus or painting.

 

[msd]

I think the no child left behind policy was detrimental to public education as a whole, because since most schools gets their funding based off state mandated testing. Its not about giving kids an actual education, its more or less teaching them the test.

Its a very dumb way to do education, and its why we've seen literacy drop so drastically in the past few years.