@Mz_Lizzy They have to want to learn whatever it is they are being taught and they have to recognize[sic] why that information they are expected to learn is relevant to their life now or in the future. That is where I think the schools need to retool and figure out. I did not like math and really did not get fractions until I took wood shop and had to use the ruler. Physics I hated even less because I never seen how it would be used in my everyday life. Had I had the tools of today and I was able to apply it to my interest or practical day applications such as how a simple block and tackle could help me an one other friend get a 700lb piano up 3 stories with the least effort then it would have had some value to me.
@omph When I was growing up my mom was around after school to make sure I did my homework before I could go outside or play video games.
There are tons of kids that have both parents that get home in the evening. I had that too. Mom was sort of the gate keeper to make sure before you went outside, watch TV, etc. your work better have been done and if it wasn’t days down the line there was going to be loss of privileges or extra chores to remind you to get it done next time. But that shipped has sailed and many don’t want to go back to that dock. The bigger fight will be who would go back into the home to make sure Sparky got his work done and help him extract the most gold out of this information gold mine as possible? Women won’t do it because they will say they fought too hard not to do that. And since we are suppose to be such a misogynic society men will have to keep working because the woman won’t earn enough off the same job. No one will give quarter and Sparky uninterested in school because “because school sucks and they have better things to do with their time” ala @incendiary_dan, so they will be off texting, sexting, or friending someone with no one there to prevent them.
@nebule I would just like to add that not all kids are capable of getting B+ grades regardless of how much discipline or how many tools they have and I think it’s a little harsh and insensitive to think otherwise. Yeah, I know, some kids are classified as dull normal and they can’t help it and may not have the capacity to even use the technology available to them. I am speaking of those who have no mental liabilities that would prevent them, they share the same Gray matter between their ears as we all have with the same capacity unless diagnosed with something that makes theirs different._*
In reading the details of your questions it comes across as if you’re saying those who fall under the B+ average are ‘slackers and flunkies’ (forgive me if I’ve misinterpreted) which I consider an outrageous statement…(besides which I was under the impression that C was average). No, under a B+ don’t make you a flunkie, you are a flunkie if you can even muster a solid D-, you are a slacker if you can’t be mediocre with a C average. But who would really want to settle for mediocre, average? If an employer has the choice of 2 graduates, a C average mediocre student from MIT or an A+ student from JFK University who do you think had a better chance of getting the job if it was about how brilliant they were?
It just seems to me that you sound a little bitter about the amount of ‘help’ in the form of tools that kids today have.. and we should be happy for them and use those tools ourselves to even further, further our own education…. No bitterness here. I do use the Internet to increase what I know every week. If some kid wants to be mediocre and work the floor of some big box department store all his life or drift from car wash to gas station to whatever it is no skin off my nose. If science had definitive proof of global warming and its cause and told people this is what you have to do in order to reverse and preserve the climate for the next generation and the generation after that and people said I am too busy to do those things, or I have better things to do than care about greenhouse gasses people might call them selfish, unwise or both. If you are given tools that you don’t use there is where I see the disconnect. All that we have learned about ecology why bother using it? Isn’t just knowing it is there the day we one day might use it good enough?
@PhiNotPi Just because there are tools doesn’t mean that the students use the tools. With all the computer and Internet has to offer I am thinking maybe they don’t know how to be the most efficient at it. I had to admit I am still learning ways to be more efficient with the computer. I think this is where the schools need to help the students better use the tools they have via the computer and internet. When I took wood shop they didn’t just say ”this is a drill, it makes round holes in wood; this is a saw, it make long boards shorter; this is a table saw, it makes large flat lumber smaller, OK, go off and build your projects”. The teacher showed us how each worked and what aspect of the project we could expect to use it and how to get the mest use of it.
@Seelix Not everyone has the capacity to be an A student in all areas To me that would sound the same as people who can’t drive saying they just don’t have the capacity to drive or operate a vehicle as well as everyone else so their cutting you off, tailgating, speeding through intersections etc, should be forgiven and we should all adapt our driving around theirs and they don’t have to try to get better. ;-)
@Seaofclouds Even in my nursing program, we weren’t allowed to use calculators when we were doing our conversions and figuring out dosages for medications. I can see that. They may want you to just know it so you don’t lose time when the person codes or at the scene of the accident because every second may count and there is no time to whip out the calculator and do the computing.
My son uses a computer in school for various things, but at this point, he’s actually learning more about the computer and how to use it than he is learning from what he is finding on the computer. He isn’t allowed to use calculators or anything like that and when he is on the computer, he isn’t allowed to have any other programs open to assist him in his work. I think that is a missed opportunity by the school. They not only should be teaching him how to navigate around on the computer but once he learns how to get around how to use it to glean as many gold nuggets from the Net with it, then he can be teaching himself at 10pm at night if he wanted.
@the100thmonkey People change, cultures change, the needs of students and countries change. If the system doesn’t change (state education is still fundamentally based on a factory model that would be familiar to Henry Ford and 19th Century industrialists), it’s going to fail.
Blaming the kids misses the point. The students might avoid a little of the blame because the system is fairly dysfunctional. I agree, we don’t do medicine the way we did in the past, or auto safety, agriculture, or even forensics, we need to update and stream line education to reflect the digital age. But just because the system is not popping on all cylinders don’t mean the students are hobbled. There are many nations where the students have less and they are whipping the tails of US students. Are they just genetically smarter because they can learn better with less? They can have brilliant students learning in a hut with dirt floors and with all the creature comforts we can expect most kids to be no better than mediocre? Does anyone not see something off there? If US kids can’t or shouldn’t be expected to rise above mediocre on average when some kid in the 3rd world with less can do it, why? Maybe we should be examining what they are doing right.
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