What was wrong with how kids were taught 40 to 50 years ago?

[WNYresident]

What was wrong with how kids were taught 40 to 50 years ago?

[HipKat]

It made too much sense?

My kids are in the common core system. Every time they ask for help with homework and I see the way the problems are set up I want to snap. It's riciculous

[mikenold]

What was wrong with how kids were taught 40 to 50 years ago?

Too many people were getting to college. The progressives want dependency on government and not for people to do things on their own.

[HipKat]

Too many people were getting to college. The progressives want dependency on government and not for people to do things on their own.

Nice try, Mr Rhetoric, but hardly true.

Don't forget, your President wants to raise Pell grants, lower tuition costs and make COmmunity COllege more accessible to all people. YOUR side is already working on blocking that so I guess it;s the CONSERVATIVES that want to limit college access, not the Liberals

[Save Us]

Kid's need to educated to what the public demand will be for their services. There are tens of millions of kids at home that got degrees in fields for which there is no demand. Consequently there will be a student loan default now up to 1.3 trillion because college prices are ridiculous and there is no work for people that have sociology, political science, communication, english, history etc.

Yeah, math is hard and requires work but getting kids to love math, engineering, technology, science, robotics, is where the jobs are and will be for some time. There is no mystery here.

[FisherRd]

Learn about white privilege, triggers, bullying, and anything to do with excusing minorities for their actions, and you'll be employed for the foreseeable future.
Major in Victim science.

[Jeff]

Kid's need to educated to what the public demand will be for their services. There are tens of millions of kids at home that got degrees in fields for which there is no demand. Consequently there will be a student loan default now up to 1.3 trillion because college prices are ridiculous and there is no work for people that have sociology, political science, communication, english, history etc.

Yeah, math is hard and requires work but getting kids to love math, engineering, technology, science, robotics, is where the jobs are and will be for some time. There is no mystery here.

Well, we have a severe shortage of domestic engineers for sure, but lets be real here. There is no way for the educational system to adjust to the market demands. This is why we give children a holistic Primary education, and let them begin selecting areas of interest in high school with the assistance of guidance counselors. Of course since there is no money for counselors anymore and they have been cut to the bone, we have a large gap in that area throughout the country. No counselors, no direction. Just another casualty of "Race to the Top".

Teaching kids with the focus on 1 particular area seems like a terrible idea that sets them up for even more failure.

[Save Us]

Well, we have a severe shortage of domestic engineers for sure, but lets be real here. There is no way for the educational system to adjust to the market demands. This is why we give children a holistic Primary education, and let them begin selecting areas of interest in high school with the assistance of guidance counselors. Of course since there is no money for counselors anymore and they have been cut to the bone, we have a large gap in that area throughout the country. No counselors, no direction. Just another casualty of "Race to the Top".

Teaching kids with the focus on 1 particular area seems like a terrible idea that sets them up for even more failure.

I suppose there are several definitions of failure... Fundamentally college or schooling is an investment with anticipated return. Depends on what you want your return to be. Getting a degree or skill in something with public demand is not a race to the top, it's called employment.

There is absolutely a way to adjust the educational system to meet market demands. Place an emphasis on math, science. It's a matter of redirecting, the same way we have been doing since the little red single classroom schoolhouses.

I am not saying to eschew core well rounded curriculum, I am saying that we need to expose kids to those fields that will be in demand, which means getting comfortable with math, science engineering, technology. We have to ask ourselves why there are record number of college graduates living at home these days and how that can be avoided.

Simply put it means pursuing those careers for which there is public demand.. Johnny might want to be an archeologist,, but there are no jobs he may have to go to trade school which actually trains you to do something with practical application. Many kids are lazy and simply do not want to put the effort into things, there are no shortage of chinese, vietnamese, indians, koreans that come here for an education that get the picture, and ultimately employment. In Germany the trades are big thing and not looked down on. The US is math weak, and there are record numbers of college graduates that had a wonderful college experience , but are now living at home.

There are no right or wrong choices, just consequences, you may love History just be prepared to have to hone your culinary skills at Mickey D's. The plumber, electrician etc is putting food on the table.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Well, we have a severe shortage of domestic engineers for sure, but lets be real here. There is no way for the educational system to adjust to the market demands. This is why we give children a holistic Primary education, and let them begin selecting areas of interest in high school with the assistance of guidance counselors. Of course since there is no money for counselors anymore and they have been cut to the bone, we have a large gap in that area throughout the country. No counselors, no direction. Just another casualty of "Race to the Top".

Teaching kids with the focus on 1 particular area seems like a terrible idea that sets them up for even more failure.

False. The education system can adjust but the various unions will not allow for the necessary changes to happen.

An example of a critical change is language studies in your 'holistic' primary education. Students should be offered, if not required, courses in development languages. The value teaching Spanish or French has considerably less value to a programming language. Similar to the cross-pollination value found in taking latin, programming languages help with math related materials.

The challenge with implementing technical languages in schools is it requires ongoing education for teachers to keep up. Unlike Spanish or French, where they can hit cruise control for 30 years, these languages require a commitment.

[mikenold]

Nice try, Mr Rhetoric, but hardly true.

Don't forget, your President wants to raise Pell grants, lower tuition costs and make COmmunity COllege more accessible to all people. YOUR side is already working on blocking that so I guess it;s the CONSERVATIVES that want to limit college access, not the Liberals

LOL, I was speaking about common core, not congress.

[TheDude]

What was wrong with how kids were taught 40 to 50 years ago?

Well an education preparing someone for an unskilled labor job in a factory is a lot different than an education preparing someone for 21st century skilled tech based economy.

[nogods]

What was wrong with how kids were taught 40 to 50 years ago?

40 or 50 years of acquired knowledge and technological and social developments that have changed the world require that we update our educational systems. Common core may not me the answer, but we can't teach kids as if it were 1960. We can't ignore 50 years of changes in our educational system. your question is no different than asking "what was wrong with how kids were taught 400 or 500 years ago?"

[HipKat]

Agreed but getting the right answer is still more important than the method

[Save Us]

40 or 50 years of acquired knowledge and technological and social developments that have changed the world require that we update our educational systems. Common core may not me the answer, but we can't teach kids as if it were 1960. We can't ignore 50 years of changes in our educational system. your question is no different than asking "what was wrong with how kids were taught 400 or 500 years ago?"

Young people not directed to those vocations in sync with societies' needs today and tomorrow will be as unemployed now/in the future as they were when I was in school. Unfortunately kids don't like math, which is a principle foundation for degrees and skills in public demand. Ps. it's a lot easier to get into med school with an engineering degree than with an English degree.

It's simple it's just not easy.

No offense but look at how many of your co graduates in law school chose the profession by default because they had a useless four year undergraduate degree for which there were little if any employment opportunities.
There are a glut of teachers because of the same thing to a degree.

[WNYresident]

40 or 50 years of acquired knowledge and technological and social developments that have changed the world require that we update our educational systems. Common core may not me the answer, but we can't teach kids as if it were 1960. We can't ignore 50 years of changes in our educational system. your question is no different than asking "what was wrong with how kids were taught 400 or 500 years ago?"

The basic teaching principles I think would still be the same. Math is math, science is science and english is still english.

Far as I know hows kids were taught 500 years ago must have been fine seeing we got where we are today. Wouldn't you agree?

The "facts" might have changed on the subject material but the methods would be the same.

Do they have home economics and shop still in grammar school? I don't know. If not why not?