What Is The Most Important Issue in Education?

[MineralMan]

Poll question: What Is The Most Important Issue in Education?

We talk a lot about education issues on DU. I thought it would be interesting to see what issues are the most important ones in DUers' minds.

Please vote and discuss as you choose.

[Spike89]

1. Of course, the poll has a huge flaw

education = "teaching stuff" and all the other choices are variables that affect the education delivered.

[MineralMan]

2. Many things influence the amount of "stuff" that gets taught and

learned. There are many methods and many outcomes. That choice is one of the possible answers in this poll. It's my choice as an answer, since I believe that "teaching students stuff" can be done in many ways, in many settings, and using many different methods. Others may choose another answer. That's why I posted the poll. Thanks for your comment.

[vi5]

3. Parent participation....

Kids are only at school for half their awake time during the day. And even during school time it's spent with different teachers with different approaches and different ways of doing things, and that's not even getting into the notion that each kid has different needs and different approaches to study and learning.

Without parent participation tying it all together, nothing else means anything. With good parenting participation, anything can be overcome.

Of course that's not always easy or at all possible for parents working 2 jobs or 3 jobs to make ends meet. So it's all tied in to so many other factors. But the bottom line is that we can't expect teachers to be all things to all kids and bear all of the responsibility. Like anyone, they can only work with the tools that they are given.

[MineralMan]

5. That's certainly important, no doubt.

[Jim__]

4. Inspiring students to be curious and teching them how to satisfy their curiousity.

Students are naturally curious. My experience in school was that this curiousity is largely destroyed. If students natural curiousity is encouraged, they will teach themselves.

[MineralMan]

6. And, along those same lines, teaching students how to learn

things on their own is a high priority with me. Learning to learn is especially important.

[Jack Sprat]

7. Remedial schools, extended high schools

I would upgrade the learning curve with higher standards in math, science, and communicative skills. Never pass a student simply to move them along. Have remedial schools for those students needing more attention so that they do not slow down the other students.

Extend high schools for an additional year, maybe two. Offer life skill courses currently offered in community colleges, so that every student receives some college at public expense.

Do away with department heads in universities. Those professors, who really don't instruct anymore, are overpaid and serve no useful purpose. They simply add to the exorbitant cost of tuition. Recycle textbooks, like in olden day, to make texts available for resale and reuse. Book costs are a ripoff now. Only the publishers benefit from new textbooks every year.

[leftstreet]

8. Whatever is most important to teachers, parents, doctors, counselors etc

Some of us aren't parents and don't always know what's going on.

We stand in solidarity with those who do know what's going on

:thumbsup:

All over the globe, children are the future

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

9. Curriculum

Having attended public school in Italy and the U.S., I have to say that the quality of the curriculum in the U.S. sucks tremendously. For all its faults, my Italian public education taught me to think in an interdisciplinary way, not just in the vacuum of whatever subject I was studying. Thus, when I studied Baroque music I was also taught what was going on politically, historically, literature-wise, architecturally, mathematically, scientifically and even recreationally at the same time around the world (not just Eurocentric perspectives).

In the U.S., as an example, my U.S. history teacher in 11th grade castigated me for trying to explain several factors going on inside France and England, which made the War of Independence more than just a quest for liberty or for the Crown. When I got an F in that paper, which noted that I wasn't supposed to discuss anything but U.S. history (France and England not being U.S.), my parents demanded a conference, along with the guidance counselor.

I also don't think the idea of letting students pick and choose subjects outside of the mandated core subjects is a good idea. Everyone should have a certain level of general knowledge in all disciplines, even if s/he does not 'like' them. I knew many classmates who hated math and didn't pursue more advanced math or science, instead picking classes like communications or yearbook.

I also think there is too much emphasis on after-school activities and sports, unfortunately perpetrated by college admissions. If you're a good student and can come up with cogent and individual thinking, that's not enough. You must also play 400 sports and 3000 instruments as well as volunteer 20309 hours of your time. If you can show you worked as a sherpa, you may even make it to Harvard or Yale. That's just bs. I went to college with many people who had so many other activities that I don't know how they managed to sleep. Yet, their thinking processes were very elementary. No wonder for many the freshman and sophomore years of college are preparatory - at best.

In Italy, I went to school in abysmal buildings, where the heat was at times working (but most often did not). The paint was peeling from walls, plumbing leaked and there were no after-school activities at all. We all took the same classes. I went to school on Saturdays too. I had so much homework. However, none of that was in the form of multiple choice tests.

Math problems were in word form. I had to write several papers for Italian literature or history or geography. And I also had to write papers in French. Although there was (and still is) an hour of Catholic religious instruction which is offered, I opted out and instead learned interesting stuff (such as the history of rock n' roll, knitting, crochet, etc.).

More importantly, then as now, I had to study and memorize lots of dates, facts and names because I'd never know when the teacher would call me up to the front of the classroom and test me orally. Yes, oral exams are the bane of Italian students.

All of this happened between elementary school and the first year of high school, including the infamous nation-wide year-end test after middle school, which consists of 4 days. The first day (which lasts 4 hours) is Italian. You have to write an essay based on several topics revealed to you on the day of the test (and these are not on the level of 'what you did on your summer vacation.' They are U.S. college-level essay type of questions).

The second day (another 3 hours) is the dreaded math exam (a bunch of word problems). At that time (in the 80s) sets and subsets were popularly taught in Italian math classes, as was algebra and the basics of trigonometry.

The third day (3 hours) was the equally frightening foreign language exam. You had to write a short essay in the foreign language you studied (in my case, it was French). There were also a few questions about grammar and literature.

The fourth day was the one everyone hated: the oral examination. You chose a topic and then you had to present and defend your overview in front of all your teachers. I chose the industrial revolution. I still remember it very well; I don't think I will ever forget it.

Yes, it was hard. Yes, it required homework and lots and lots of reading and studying, but now I am thankful for it. When I tell my U.S. friends about this torture, they think I'm lying. Unfortunately, recent changes by the Berlusconi administration have revised this curriculum and, for all its virtues, Italian education still loves memorization.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

11. Wanted to add...

plenty of my classmates flunked a couple of subjects (which they could repeat with an exam in the summer) or, if they failed 3 subjects or more, they would have to repeat that particular school year.

Moreover, there were kids whose parents were not very involved as well as kids whose parents were very involved. Socioeconomic background didn't mean a thing.

At that time, we were very poor but my parents always got me books (because I was a voracious reader) and encouraged me to talk about 'stuff' from literature to science to history.

As for the teachers, I was fortunate to have awesome teachers. They didn't have a background in education (in that, in Italy, you don't major in education unless you teach at the elementary school or kindergarten levels), but in the field they taught. They truly loved to teach. They encouraged creative thinking and inquiry. In fact, the Socratic method was widely applied. My sister, on the other hand, was not so lucky, but she was still exposed to all of this.

[uncommon]

22. This should be an OP -

I wish you would post it on the main page in GD.

[jaxx]

10. The Kids. The Kids. The Kids.

I voted teaching kids stuff. All those wide open minds just waiting to learn. Doesn't matter rich or poor, one or two or same parent families, color, or which side of town. All that matters is the kids walking away with the ability to reason and to want to learn more.

[dan_87]

12. Anti-bullying

teaching students stuff - like anti-bullying

[Mister Griswold]

13. Lousy parents. Believe me.

Good student = good parent(s).
Bad student = lousy parents(s).
Every. Time.

[1monster]

14. The real most important issue in education is what we teach and how we

teach.

The state and federal legislatures tend, these days, to set specific curriculum and the method of teaching. Different people have different learning styles and one size does not fit all.

We end up trying to pound square pegs into round holes. It doesn't work well at all.

[NJmaverick]

15. K

[wickerwoman]

16. Today, it's keeping them public and localized.

Funnily enough, teachers teach better when they are well-compensated, have job security and benefits, have some sense of ownership over the curriculum, are free to respond on the ground to individual children's needs, and are treated as professionals and with respect.

All of those thing are threatened by the move to privatize public schools. I don't want a McTeacher for my kids and neither should anyone who has a lick of common sense.

Some things simply absolutely never should be for profit. Health care is one. Fire service is another. And education is a *huge* one.

[Radical Activist]

19. The problem.

I think your statement here is excellent: "Funnily enough, teachers teach better when they are well-compensated, have job security and benefits, have some sense of ownership over the curriculum, are free to respond on the ground to individual children's needs, and are treated as professionals and with respect."

However, your argument that charter schools threaten those needs assumes public schools currently provide them. This often isn't the case. It's no coincidence that charter schools have more support in low-income school districts that have the most trouble providing what's on your list, among other things. In some cases, non-profit public charters are created with several of those needs in mind.

[wickerwoman]

20. I don't assume they *do* provide them, I assume they should.

Is the solution to a flat tire buying a new car?

If we agree that the main problem is poor compensation for teachers and the deprofessionalization of educators, then the solution is to compensate teachers better and return control over the curriculum to them, not to build new schools.

[AsahinaKimi]

17. having

The right educational tools, and text books that show accurate information.

[slackmaster]

18. Teaching students stuff about the Metric System

Our entire economic future depends on it.

[uncommon]

21. As a parent, I really do think a big part of our problem is the parents -- I put a lot

of time and effort into my daughter's education - volunteering, talking to her teachers, and most of all just being there to help her with homework and reading and teaching her as much as I can myself.

She is lucky - I am well educated and really care about her success. This isn't the case for all students.

I would also add that I don't do this because I have a lot of free time to devote to it - I work 50 hours a week and have very little "extra" time, but I owe it to my daughter to support her, so I do it.