They'll actually have wasted much less time.

Let's look at two cases. Person 1 has specialized in Subject A and learns absolutely nothing about subjects B-Z. The chances that 1 doesn't want to do A is nearly 100% (there is a 1 out of a thousand chance that A is his calling). And so when he turns 18 and gets to do what he wants, he has to start back over at scratch, wasting the first 12 years of his education. Person 2 doesn't specialize, instead gets a broad general education of as many subjects as he can (as seeing that math and communication are involved in nearly every possible career path, they cover just about everything). So when 2 turns 18, he will have some basic knowledge of everysubject and throughfore better off than person 1, and have wasted less time. Also, should later in life he decide to change professions again (because a lot of people do), once again he will have a general education that puts him ahead of those that have none.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Sounds like how I handled college, unfortunately.

Asking an eighteen year old to make expensive, naive decisions, and determine what classes and path to get locked into is just messed up. I was too naive to even explore what option there were, and ended up with a pretty useless degree. Oh, how I envy those who know their calling/talents....

Anyway, this is about K-12. I agree that a broad "liberal arts" education is best in general.

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An employee gets trampled to death by a frenzied, greedy mob at a Walmart sale, and customers actually complained when the store closed. Yet, I'm the bad guy for suggesting policies that assume people act like retarded herd animals that need government nannying and control....

I wonder if the people who want the government out of their child's education would say the same if the subject was child abuse or other inarguably harmful activities? The lack of a proper education that enables the child to go forth into the world and prosper is, as far as I am concerned, a form of child abuse. I don't care if your kid is the world's best corn schucker, whether they can shear a sheep in a minute flat or if they can take apart a harley and put it back together again. If they cannot read, write, communicate and do math, then they are screwed.

Yes - particularly since what the government claims is "harmful" sometimes isn't, e.g. an occasional swat on the backside. I don't have a problem with law enforcement charging parents with assault when an actual assault has occurred (one that would be considered an assault if it was done to an adult) or murder when parents beat their kids to death. My objection is to the government trying to dictate to parents how they must raise their children and these damned child "protective" service agencies ruining the lives of people based on false accusations by children who said things only out of spite.

Who the hell are you to decide what is "proper" for someone else's child???? Raise your own damned kids and keep your nose out of everyone else's families!

Well, you know, that's for their parents to decide, not you and most certainly not the government.

And many of the people going through these damned government indoctrination centers can barely read, write, communicate, and do math. What's your point?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So basically, you are so full of hatred, you cannot see past your own bias. Gotcha. No point conversing with someone so hate filled. Have fun.

Oh, and not to ruin your point, but if you slapped me on the ***, I could have you charged with assault...

What's interesting is the very same people who rail against people not knowing English, also tend to be the ones who rail against education in general.

Maybe they pick everything up via osmosis?

My bottom line is that neither public nor private nor homeschooling seems to be doing the job, these days. Maybe private schools perform a bit better, but that's like saying a D is better than an F - still ain't nothing to brag about.

A common thread throughout this, er, thread, is looking for ways to make it easier on kids, ways to skate with minimal effort, and a desire for no mandatory standards (i.e. "state-enforced indoctrination"), and even to "let" kids and parents decide what and how much education they want.

I am not hearing how less education, or how massive decentralization (free-for-all) translates into higher performance. It hasn't happened in other industries. Free enterprise is great for a lot of things, but not everythng. Should we decentralize the military? Let the soldiers decide what sort of uniform to wear, when/if to deploy, etc.?

I am not a fan of allowing the inmates run the asylum. Parents make decisions based on their personal desires for their OWN children, NOT what's in the best interest of all the children. I've heard it here: "Why should I pay for anyone else...?" It's that fundamental, selfish, myopic philosophy I cite as exactly the reason why decentralization is not going to acheive optimum results.

Now, admittedly, my ideas for reform are rather draconian, but that's just how I roll. For me, failure in education is simply not an option one can "choose". Current dropout rates are insane, and all of us suffer for it, directly or indirectly. To me, the response to that isn't to lower or eliminate standards, and have everyone just scatter in different directions, grabbing whatever smattering of knowledge one can.

Personally, I am not interested in whether everyone is "happy". I want results, not excuses, and I'd crack a million eggs to get there, were I in charge. If we are to continue to enjoy high standards of living, education is a huge key to maintaining and improving that. There's simply no excuse for not having the best education in the world. That takes vision, committment and a willingness to make very hard decisions.

Years ago, I helped a friend coach youth soccer, eight and nine year olds. Half the parents wanted the kids to just have fun, play everyone, etc. We did that for half the season, and lost every game.

Then we started getting parents who wanted results. Wins. So, we began drilling the kids, longer practices, conditioning, strategy, position tactics, etc. We started winning...and the other half of the parents whined that their kid was barely playing.

So, at the end of the season, we called a meeting of the parents to see if they could figure out what they wanted. Lo and behold, they couldn't.

My point is that education is not supposed to be "fun", or something you "shop" around for, to get the best deal,cheapest price, or easiest curriculum. If you want to win, you have to be a disciplined, functioning team, and the ONLY way you get that is with coordination and consistency. Do the kids like it? No, but their opinions are irrelevant.

If your goal is maximizing choice, fine. Don't expect consistent results. If the goal is top-grade education for EVERY child in America, I am afraid that takes top-down government to establish, administer and enforce standards.

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An employee gets trampled to death by a frenzied, greedy mob at a Walmart sale, and customers actually complained when the store closed. Yet, I'm the bad guy for suggesting policies that assume people act like retarded herd animals that need government nannying and control....

Great post.

We're not against education, we're just against the government having its hands on it.

Linguists argue that language is mainly acquired, not learned. But, again, we're not against education, we're against the government having its hands on it and we're against these damned government-loving, freedom-hating nanny-staters trying to run everyone else's lives.

So why the hell would you want to keep on entrusting it to the government and why would you want to force parents to subject their children to it?

I'm not interested in making things easier for kids. The easy thing would be for parents to just surrender their children to the government to do with them as it pleases (which is what some here want them to be forced to do). I want parents to be allowed to be parents and I want you people to keep your damned hands off other people's children!

No one here is saying there should be "less" education, we're saying it's the parents' responsibilty to decide what kind or how much education their children should receive.

So, parents are the inmates?

And you so damned stupidly still want to force parents to trust government to educate their children given how badly these schools perform?

And just who the hell are you to dictate to someone else how they must raise their children???? Go have your own damned children and raise them as you see fit.

Yes, well, it was part of a really sick, perverted leftist agenda in the 1990s here in America to eliminate all "competition" in sports. The kids were supposed to just play to have fun and there were no winners or losers. These damned perverts were also the ones trying to turn boys into girls by taking away their natural male behaviors.

The point of playing on a sports team is to win the game.

Different viewpoints.

Quote:

My point is that education is not supposed to be "fun", or something you "shop" around for, to get the best deal,cheapest price, or easiest curriculum. If you want to win, you have to be a disciplined, functioning team, and the ONLY way you get that is with coordination and consistency. Do the kids like it? No, but their opinions are irrelevant.

No, it isn't supposed to be fun. It is, however, the parents' responsibility to decide what education they want for their children.

My goal is letting parents carry out their parental responsibilities and keeping the government's nose out of places (like education) where it doesn't belong. I don't give a rat's behind about consistent or equal. I want there to be competition among schools and I want the best schools to be able to get the best students.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

What is the statistic on the number of people who can't read when graduating from high school. I keep hearing Chan assert so many can't read, but he never actually provides reliable statistics on anything.

Does anyone know? Last time I checked, literacy rates were fairly high.

I didn't say they can't read at all. If you're going to disagree with me then you damned well had better get it right!

Besides, the definition of "literate" is a really low standard. Even the Social Security Administration considers a third grade reading level to be "literate" for the purposes of its disability program.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."