The Purpose of Public Education

Debate serious and interesting topics, rant about politics or pop culture, or otherwise converse in essay form about your opinions. The rules of conduct here are a little stricter.

What do you think should be the primary purpose of public education?

To ensure all students develop a basic proficiency in core subjects
1
5%
To ensure all students develop an advanced proficiency in core subjects
0
No votes
To offer all students an opportunity to gain basic proficiency in core subjects
1
5%
To offer all students an opportunity to gain advanced proficiency in core subjects
3
14%
To prepare students to be good citizens in a democratic society
0
No votes
To teach morals and values
0
No votes
To prepare all students for entrance to higher education (college)
1
5%
To develop students' ability to think rationally and critically
9
43%
To provide students with the education needed for their future occupations
3
14%
To rectify social inequities
0
No votes
To provide a shared "American" experience for all students
0
No votes
To nourish students' souls and help them find personal fulfillment
0
No votes
To help students find their life's work
0
No votes
To provide students with a range of opportunities and experiences
3
14%
To provide students with marketable skills
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 21

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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.01.12 (22:56)

This quarter, I'm taking two lower-division humanities classes to fulfill general education requirements. One of these classes is Intro to Education. Our very first assignment was to answer a survey which was focused on the question in this thread's poll. We didn't have much dialogue about it in class, which disappointed me, so now I'd like to take this bitch apart with you guys.

Our class of 300 students answered the following, sorted by popularity:
  • To develop students' ability to think rationally and critically: 20.2%
  • To ensure all students develop a basic proficiency in core subjects: 19.7%
  • To provide students with a range of opportunities and experiences: 10.8%
  • To prepare all students for entrance to higher education (college): 8.9%
  • To offer all students an opportunity to gain advanced proficiency in core subjects: 7.0%
  • To provide students with the education needed for their future occupations: 7.0%
  • To ensure all students develop an advanced proficiency in core subjects: 5.6%
  • To teach morals and values: 4.2%
  • To nourish students' souls and help them find personal fulfillment: 4.2%
  • To offer all students an opportunity to gain basic proficiency in core subjects: 3.3%
  • To help students find their life's work: 3.3%
  • To prepare students to be good citizens in a democratic society: 2.3%
  • To rectify social inequities: 1.4%
  • To provide a shared "American" experience for all students: 0.9%
  • To provide students with marketable skills: 0.9%
Or if you prefer pie charts:

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I chose #1: "To ensure all students develop a basic proficiency in core subjects".


The survey also came with two prompts, which I've attempted to recreate from memory because I no longer have access to the original survey, and which I answered with the following:

Explain your choice for the primary focus of education:
Public education is funded by taxes, and therefore its purpose should be focused on providing the greatest benefit to the country's population in the most egalitarian manner possible. Since the average level of education has historically shown to be an outstanding positive influence on virtually all other aspects of a society, this is the purpose for which the population's tax dollars are put to their most effective use.
To prescribe to the public education system the goal to provide an _advanced_ proficiency in core subjects, however, is highly unrealistic and in some ways self-defeating, primarily because it necessarily assumes that all core subjects are equally deserving of the funding an "advanced" program would receive (where deservedness is measured by their positive societal influence). The "free market" approach to higher learning that comes as a consequence of allowing students to choose their field of study in post-secondary education allows for much more accurate determination of each academic subject's worth to society; "important" fields of study will pull in more funding and attention than subjects which become more stale and irrelevant.
Ensuring a basic proficiency in core subjects will result in a gradual improvement in what society considers "basic" proficiency, whereas forcing all students to have an advanced proficiency will only cause the value of "advanced" proficiency to regress toward the mean.

The (optional) second priority of public education should be to _offer_, rather than _require_, advanced proficiency in core subjects. A progressive egalitarian system should offer _opportunity_ for success as equally as possible, instead of limiting students with high potential for academic achievement by anchoring them to the lowest common denominator. A society's prodigees and revolutionary thinkers can meaningfully raise social standards all on their own; they should be given every opportunity to fulfill their potential through accelerated learning programs.

For related reasons, primary and secondary public education should pay no mind whatsoever to industry. While any society needs drones, it should never be explicitly intended that they be produced; instead, they will result in droves directly from their own low achievement potential. Until such time as they graduate from their respective secondary education institutions and fail to earn a place in post-secondary education, they should be given as much opportunity and encouragement to succeed as any other student.

Since level of education and criminal activity have a strong negative correlation, it seems more likely that focus on education will naturally produce a more moral population than the miserable failures that are Drug Abuse Resistance Education and Bible Study. Flattening social inequalities and personal fulfillment also tend to follow level of education; there is little requirement that these should be a focus (although I'm somewhat expecting to be proven quite wrong on this point when Prof. Curry lectures). Similarly, critical thinking is more of a requirement to succeed in academia in the first place, and it should therefore be expected that it will be taught indirectly anyway.

The phrase "American experience" has ceased to mean much of anything in particular since the turn of the 20th century.
What do you believe are the obstacles (if there are any) in the way of fulfilling this purpose?
In recent decades, an unfortunately significant proportion of American culture has become anti-intellectual. We need to put much more focus on encouraging academic achievement and reverse this trend as quickly as possible. I don't have many ideas for seeding future generations with this sort of motivation because I'm not much of a sociologist, but I firmly believe that one major source of the problem is the set of qualifications (or lack thereof) we accept in our politicians. The fact that we have as many anti-science, evolution-denying ignoramuses in charge of policy-making, particularly educational policies, is atrocious. The fact that there are more than zero of them in positions of power and influence is a travesty. The theater of American politics is little more than a circus, and this critically undermines social progress.
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Postby otters~1 » 2011.01.12 (23:59)

Voted for "To prepare all students for entrance to higher education (college)" from personal views and experience but I think I should be allowed to vote for 2-3 choices. Haven't time to read your post, will soon.

EDIT: <_< Misread the poll. What what should instead of what is.

I voted for the "help students attain basic proficiency" option. The point of elementary and secondary school (aside from the humanizing and socializing of children) is to make sure everyone has enough knowledge of things like math and reading to function in college and then the world. This seems to be a valid and good thing at least in theory, although I'm eager to read other arguments.
Last edited by otters~1 on 2011.01.17 (02:31), edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Rose » 2011.01.15 (20:19)

I also voted for preparing students for higher education.
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Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2011.01.16 (07:23)

I went for "to develop students' ability to think rationally and critically" because there seems to be such an immense absence of these abilities in general society, and to me that's even more important than any specific knowledge of English or maths or science or history or any such else.
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Postby T3chno » 2011.01.16 (08:29)

What they do:
To prepare all students for entrance to higher education (college)

What they should do:
To develop students' ability to think rationally and critically
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Postby noops » 2011.01.16 (18:00)

I haven't voted yet. I'm thinking about voting for the "prividing marketable skills" option, because that makes sense to me, and, the way I'm reading it, that option basically states that "The purpose of school is to make society better". I think I might hold off until I see some compelling arguments for/from either side.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.01.16 (22:00)

3 p.m. anal wrote:I think I might hold off until I see some compelling arguments for/from either side.
So, like, I totally gave a supporting argument for my choice in my post.
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Postby rocket_thumped » 2011.01.17 (03:12)

I chose 'a range of opportunities and experiences'. But I'd like to clarify that I think it should provide students with the opportunity to fulfill their goals for their future. Which I guess it does to some extent.
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Postby remm » 2011.01.17 (11:05)

For me, the best choice was 'To provide students with the education needed for their future occupations'.

Obviously the education system will not be able to provide all the education required for a future occupation, I understood the option to mean that a school should provide students with an education that will allow them to get a job.
I do not only mean for the public education system to provide students with qualifications or knowledge of subjects, but it should also provide an environment that has the potential to let students develop life skills and experience that I perceive to be just as crucial as knowing the core subjects.

I could not choose between the first four options presented, because they cannot be considered independently. It should be a requirement of the public education system that all students get a basic knowledge of the core subjects, and there always be an opportunity for advanced knowledge available to those who wish to take it.
Back in primary school I did take extra-curricular maths for a short while, and I regret being so reluctant to make more out of it. Instead, after a month I stopped doing it, much to the displeasure of my parents and teachers. I believe I would be better off now if it had been forced upon me to complete it.
Sometimes basic education needs to be forced upon the more difficult students, else they will not learn soon enough in their life to be able to take control and start learning to change what they don't know. Many teens are ignorant about the value of an education, and I feel it should not be left to the student to decide how much work is done. The whole point of a school is to teach, and during high school, I know that many students, (especially boys) were of the opinion that they already knew more than their teachers and hence didn't need to learn anything. No employer is going to want someone who thinks they know everything. A kid has to understand that fact at one point in his life. It is those sort of important life lessons that the public education should be aiming to teach.

I guess that what I'm mentioning would also come under the heading of thinking rationally and critically, but I believe you need more than that to succeed in the world.
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Postby noops » 2011.01.18 (18:51)

T̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư wrote:
3 p.m. anal wrote:I think I might hold off until I see some compelling arguments for/from either side.
So, like, I totally gave a supporting argument for my choice in my post.
In your post, it reads more like you are more for "giving them marketable skills" than for the "basic understanding of core subjects".
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.01.19 (02:15)

spuun wrote:In your post, it reads more like you are more for "giving them marketable skills" than for the "basic understanding of core subjects".
That's unfortunate. I meant to say that the "basic proficiency" should be purely academic, as though the goal was to train everyone to be able to decently conduct academic research in any field. It is expected that some will learn faster than others, and they should ideally be given opportunities to specialize in order to gain an advanced proficiency in their subject of interest. It is also expected that most students will not be interested in academic research and end up with skills which are incidentally useful for other employment. It should never be the case, as I meant to emphasize, that schooling should teach you to be good at any specific job; the application of what you learn in school to any job you may end up with should be a happy coincidence, not a primary intention or priority.
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