Time to ‘rethink school’?
- Thread starter johnny6
- Start date
Watched a show on BBC2 a few weeks ago about automation / machine learning and one of the uses being trialled in America was AI based teaching methods that allowed individual learning. All the kids were sat in a large classroom and had their own tablet / headphones. Each pupil followed subjects of their own interests and the AI assessed them at every stage to help them improve, one teacher was also available if needed.
The kids seemed to enjoy it and the adviser talking about said the government like it as it reduces cost (less teachers required) and takes power away from the teacher unions. Just seemed like a very cold way of learning though, all these kids sat in silence staring at a screen
Parents need to take responsibility of their children and not expect the taxpayer to significantly subsidise the raising of children. Education is something which taxpayers are happy to cover in a civilised society, and unless an education expert can show significant benefit to extending the day by an additional 2 hours it shouldn't happen.
8.45am to 5.45pm is longer than many people work.
I suspect a parental tax to pay for these additional 2 hours of work for schools wouldn't be popular (not that I would suggest that). I find there is always a costs angle to this argument and guess who should pay for it.
8.45am to 5.45pm is longer than many people work.
I suspect a parental tax to pay for these additional 2 hours of work for schools wouldn't be popular (not that I would suggest that). I find there is always a costs angle to this argument and guess who should pay for it.
It scares me when math-phys people get to re-designing education. In my life it was the exact opposite. Maths, physics and chemistry beyond basic level turned out to be useless subjects of little to no practical value, humanist subjects however were indispensable, and I wish they haven't wasted so much of my time in school teaching us how to calculate powers and root squares, how ameba procreates and what's the imaginary notation of chemical formula for some obscure reaction. Knowledge of logics, literature, history, geography, cultures and languages - benefits society rather than individual. A set of tools to communicate, to dialog, to flesh out thoughts and understanding of human condition, knowledge of things tried, tested and failed to make a progress and so on.
Look at where we are now - we have a growing trend of people reversing back, retarding the society, believing in formulaic axioms without any scale of things - people in the second decade of twenty first century now believe in flat earth again or waste invaluable decades of technology progress because blind belief in warming/cooling/climate changes - and it's not because of their ineptitude to calculate axioms of exact sciences - almost exact opposite - it's because immediate calculations and numbers suggest so. The humanistic logic, the geographical scale, the historical facts confirming it's been done, tested and proven otherwise - all of that is impaired for at least two generations. The lack of communication skills in other languages make our scientific world isolated - it's an echo chamber of the same google results repeated over and over strengthening errors, people talking themselves into regression. And those in the avantguard actively stop progress. We don't share techs with public, if there are no number behind them. We don't do researches, we don't develop cures for the benefit of all - if there are no numbers behind them.
On the large scale of things we no longer know how to do things we've long done and forgotten - as an example - we no longer have technologies from 60ies to fly men to the moon - but it also impacts on our every day life - we develop closed systems where we penalise ourselves with "congestion charges" for coming into centralised areas, then stagnate living quarters and push everyone out of the city centres to live further and further away, so they have to travel more and more. We no longer grasp why all of it - the cities, the central areas, the work together - was done in the first place - the society, the progress, the human kind - that's now maths and physics of things - it turned into how many, in how short time, through how wide apertures of the city streets for how much money, because teaching people about people's subjects - needed for philosophy, humanism, sociology - is failing.
Last edited:
Associate
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2013
- Posts
- 1,824
- Location
- Chiang Mai
Agreed. You would also have to worry about what they are being taught. Sounds like a great way to basically indoctrinate someone into a way of thinking.just seemed like a very cold way of learning though, all these kids sat in silence staring at a screen
I think the back and forth of a classroom and the social side of learning is important. Hard to imagine people having healthy social skills if it's just one on one with information being thrown at you and you don't even have a way of arguing or debating against the AI.
It would have to be very factual and avoid any areas where bias or interpretation could arise. Would be very limited in what could be taught correctly imo.
Along with larger class sizes and teachers teaching more subjects. My partner is a prime example. She's a geography teacher by training yet currently teaches geography, history, travel and business all at GCSE and a-level. She has two free periods a week to apparently do all her planning, marking and have 1 to 1s with any available students. It's literally not possible. She's in school from half 7 to half 6 every day, comes home and then usually works until half 9 or 10. During this half term shes been in school 6 days.
And yet the government wonders why teachers are quitting...
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 29 Nov 2008
- Posts
- 13,518
- Location
- London
Skills like this dont really need to be taught with things like youtube.
I'm amazed some older people still dont know how to find information on the internet.
Ironic really as I imagine the majority of parents are also tax payers. Put it another way in 39 years I’ve used hospitals about half a dozen times but I wouldn’t expect more regular hospital users to pay a patient tax. I also assume that at some point all tax payers (regardless of whether they have children or not) have attended school themselves.
This is about a fundamental redesign of the education system one part of which is my suggestion that it should include more hours which can then be reinvested in making education more fun (the litmus test would be if this resulted in a more highly skilled future workforce)
This isn’t about more of the same. So just chuck in another period of maths and RE in which students all look at the front of the class and are talked at.
RE has been mentioned a number of times in the comments and I get it. My experience of RE was being talked at for one hour each week by a Christian teacher.
How much more interesting would RE be if it involved guest speakers to talk about the differences and similarities of the different faiths and what this meant to day to day life, charity and human nature. How much more interesting would RE be if it involved site visits to churches, temples and other religious buildings, in which maths, design and architecture where discussed along side religion.
What if you need to wire the plug to turn youtube on
I got taught how to wire a plug in physics during one of our electricity modules. Still remember my teachers' explanation of what happens if you touch the live wire.
Sadly seems to happen less these days for various reasons (i.e. glued to their phone/tablet sitting at home) - but a big part of my learning experience as a child was from the fact we finished at 3pm - came home and then had a few hours to play with friends around the neighbourhood, do activities/clubs that weren't limited to what the school could offer, etc. I don't think that could ever be replaced inside the framework of a school day.
Regarding RE at my school it was much more spiritual with some lite Christian teaching and lightly touching on other religions but largely it was a touch more hippy than anything with a lot of focus on environmental issues, etc. my nephews (that is in NI mind) seems to be quite a lot heavier on the Christian aspects though.
Regarding RE at my school it was much more spiritual with some lite Christian teaching and lightly touching on other religions but largely it was a touch more hippy than anything with a lot of focus on environmental issues, etc. my nephews (that is in NI mind) seems to be quite a lot heavier on the Christian aspects though.
Assuming you have a working RCD, not a fat lot
Or well, if you're wiring a plug to an appliance, nothing, because it wont be plugged in hah.
In my last school some kids were getting home after 6pm. During dark nights there were having tea and then going straight to bed. How depressing! The school has now reduced the school hours so kids are able to leave 1.5hrs earlier.
Assuming you have a working RCD, not a fat lot
I've had some pretty nasty shocks, with an RCD fitted, though not sure how well it was working. One of those was stupidity as a child - funny thing was I knew to keep one arm behind my back, knew to turn off the plug (only I actually turned it on instead of off without realising) but didn't think to disconnect the **** thing from the wall when poking around to see what was wrong - I was only about 7 mind.
Assuming you have a working RCD, not a fat lot
Or well, if you're wiring a plug to an appliance, nothing, because it wont be plugged in hah.
True and true!
Came about when someone asked about getting electrocuted and he just stared at her dumbfounded. Was brilliant.I think 0845 to 1715 would be far too much for most children.
Given their young age and the amount of new information they have to take in each day, I expect many children are working proportionately as hard and intensely (if not more so) per hour as many adults at work are.
Plus, they're children and they need time to be just that. I never had homework at primary school, unlike my younger siblings, and it had absolutely no impact on my education - we've all done equally well.
Given their young age and the amount of new information they have to take in each day, I expect many children are working proportionately as hard and intensely (if not more so) per hour as many adults at work are.
Plus, they're children and they need time to be just that. I never had homework at primary school, unlike my younger siblings, and it had absolutely no impact on my education - we've all done equally well.
I'd hate to be the education minister that changed the time to 17:15 when the first kid gets run over because kids will be walking home in the dark...
Our daylight savings times are almost contingent on kids finishing school, there have been discussions to change it to two hours.
Our daylight savings times are almost contingent on kids finishing school, there have been discussions to change it to two hours.
Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Mar 2013
- Posts
- 3,321
- Location
- Caistor
Nope.
Climate change is an interpretation of evidence recorded across the globe, whether one choose to believe it or not, it is there and it is very real.
And you can't blame everything on the shift of educational focus. If you ask why are there more people believing the earth is flat again, there are multiple valid reasons for it, most of them involves the improved informational flow, and failure of distinguishing between true & false positive evidence.
Science is basic subject to teach us one thing - deductive logic. If 1+1 = 2, what is 2+2. However, only a handful of intellect can ask thing the other way, why is 2+2 = 4. So the fact that the current generation cannot question a flawed logic, it is not because they were only taught science in school, it is because they fail to truly learn science, which you can blame it on the failure of the education provider, but not the subject itself.
I do agree that children should be able to choose what they want to learn, I did and I am thankful for it. However, making subjects like sociology or philosophy is not fool proof. If one is not receptive of the true value behind a subject, one will not truly learn anything and continue make the stupid mistakes that we observe so well in the modern society.