Best education for you?

[Philosophos]

Soooo what's the ideal education for you? You can say whatever you want. In my opinion the best education system is when we have a wide range of subjects (not just maths, geometry, history etc) like driving lessons, sex edu, philosophy, acting lessons etc.
At the same time we should have proper teachers and professors whose job is to make themselves useless meaning that they should teach to children how to think on their own so they won't need a teacher or anyone else in the future to tell them what they should believe in.
Also a good idea is to make as many classes as possible for kids with different needs in education. I don't just mean kids with disabilities or kids who have hard time to learn something I'm talking about all kinds of kids here for example I use more my right part of my brain so I have to visualise things instead of using words so the educational system should give support in some subjects to me and all the other kids around that have the same difficulty.
At the same time we should give bases to the rating system... No A,B,C but only a brief discription from the teacher of what the kid is doing to the parents and the student him/herself.
In addition we should sepparate the cleverer students from the ones that are not so clever. I've heard from time to time that this will create a complex or a syndrome to the kid that goes to the "idiots" classes but I strongly disagree. If the student wants to learn he will learn if he doesn't we will try and then he can screw himself.
Finally we should make school a better and friendlier enviroment for the kids. That means more choices for the students to make, more extracurricular activities, more independence, teachers should be friendlier too and we should strike some sick phenomenons like bulling from the root.

So what's your ideas about this?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Sounds nice enough, way better than what I'm doing right now.

[Avanti]

the question is, for what kind of society should we learn?

when i was 17 years old

i burnt down a school

i did it during night

the people i did it with freaked out

the night turned as bright as the day

i hurt my left arm in the flames

i fled

but the police caught me

i still owe the state 1,5 million $

but the kids did not have to go to school for a month

the current school system is a system for enslaving minds

kids go to school happy, dreaming of becoming astronauts and pirates

they come out, all devastated, squeezed by the institutions

with destroyed hopes

they have been broken down and reformed

into obedient little drones

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

More opportunities to learn by actually doing shit. Like designing and building a fully functioning motor vehicle, miniature power plant or unmanned space rocket.

My dream school would also include the following classes:

Rifle Training & Firearms Safety
Hunting & Survival Skills
Introductory Nuclear Engineering
Applied Circuitry & Electronics
Land, Sea, Air, & Space Navigation
Applied Logic & Critical Thinking
Rhetoric & Oratory
Novel Writing

But in general I think education needs to be a hell of a lot more flexible. In Music I had no interest in learning the keyboard (which the whole class did at the time), but I reckon I would have have been more receptive to the option of learning how to play the guitar or drums. Or learning how to DJ.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Well, you can start by not having laws that force kids and teens to stay in school until they are 18, and by making education free.
The current education system still does not serve to make humans better, it serves to make humans into machines, ready to serve society without quesiton. The first thing that should be taught to a child is to always doubt. Now I will write like avanti:

When I was young

I would see the other kids

going to class when the bell rang

but I never went after them

I never understood why I should follow the rule of a sound

I never understood why i should obey anyone whowas not my mother

I knew she was the only person who truly loved me.

I always doubted everything, never took anything as right. I did not understand why dissobedience would get into trouble, I only knew it did. When I grew bigger I begun to doubt society, and why it should be this way, and not another way. Then I found anarchism, which answered these questions, and gave me a goal.

The good school must be a natural school, where the student does not have to religiously follow prewriten rules. The student should still listen to the teacher, and, when he is younger, follow his command. The student should also have the option of picking the classes he wants to take, individualy, so that when one wants to be a mechanic he does not have to learn history, for example.
When a child starts school he is thrown out of his home cultural enviroment, and cast into a diferent cultural environment, which can lead to a sort of cultural shock. To mix children from violent areas, where the child was taught no values from his parents, with children from decent areas, where the child was taught values from his parents, leads to cultural shock, where the victims are the ones who recived values, since they are less in number.
To leave children from completely different cultural origins alone with one another will inevitably lead to bullying. We need to have more elementary and middle schools (in american terms) in order to avoid this cultural shock, but as the children grow they learn values for themselves, so it is not necessary to have more high schools.
After we deal with the problem of cultural shock, we need to deal with the problem of the authoritarian rules system in schools. The student will become scared of the classroom, because he associates it with lack of freedom, which can create anxiety in the student. As soon as children are inserted in school they leave the world of humans and enter the world of machines, where they have to behave according to preset standards, or they get punished, where they have to do exactly as the teacher says, or they get punished, where only writing answers as the teacher taught counts, where creativity counts for nothing, if they to be creative in a test and answer as they want, they get punished with a bad grade. This is unnacceptable! School should not serve to make us into machines, teachers should not behave as machines, and all the beaurocracy in schools shoud just cease to exist.

The perfect school is where the student feels as free as when he is home, and where he is encouraged to learn, not forced, and where he does not get punished for being a human.


You can tell that for me school was, and in some ways still is, a traumatic experience.

[Philosophos]

Well, you can start by not having laws that force kids and teens to stay in school until they are 18, and by making education free.
The current education system still does not serve to make humans better, it serves to make humans into machines, ready to serve society without quesiton. The first thing that should be taught to a child is to always doubt. Now I will write like avanti:

When I was young

I would see the other kids

going to class when the bell rang

but I never went after them

I never understood why I should follow the rule of a sound

I never understood why i should obey anyone whowas not my mother

I knew she was the only person who truly loved me.

I always doubted everything, never took anything as right. I did not understand why dissobedience would get into trouble, I only knew it did. When I grew bigger I begun to doubt society, and why it should be this way, and not another way. Then I found anarchism, which answered these questions, and gave me a goal.

The good school must be a natural school, where the student does not have to religiously follow prewriten rules. The student should still listen to the teacher, and, when he is younger, follow his command. The student should also have the option of picking the classes he wants to take, individualy, so that when one wants to be a mechanic he does not have to learn history, for example.
When a child starts school he is thrown out of his home cultural enviroment, and cast into a diferent cultural environment, which can lead to a sort of cultural shock. To mix children from violent areas, where the child was taught no values from his parents, with children from decent areas, where the child was taught values from his parents, leads to cultural shock, where the victims are the ones who recived values, since they are less in number.
To leave children from completely different cultural origins alone with one another will inevitably lead to bullying. We need to have more elementary and middle schools (in american terms) in order to avoid this cultural shock, but as the children grow they learn values for themselves, so it is not necessary to have more high schools.
After we deal with the problem of cultural shock, we need to deal with the problem of the authoritarian rules system in schools. The student will become scared of the classroom, because he associates it with lack of freedom, which can create anxiety in the student. As soon as children are inserted in school they leave the world of humans and enter the world of machines, where they have to behave according to preset standards, or they get punished, where they have to do exactly as the teacher says, or they get punished, where only writing answers as the teacher taught counts, where creativity counts for nothing, if they to be creative in a test and answer as they want, they get punished with a bad grade. This is unnacceptable! School should not serve to make us into machines, teachers should not behave as machines, and all the beaurocracy in schools shoud just cease to exist.

The perfect school is where the student feels as free as when he is home, and where he is encouraged to learn, not forced, and where he does not get punished for being a human.


You can tell that for me school was, and in some ways still is, a traumatic experience.

I know what you mean... There was a teacher in my school that actually insulted me and my father in front of my father because I laughed in the classroom (not at him). When I went to the principal the teachers (with a few exceptions from some leftish teachers) they told me that it was my fault and that the teacher who insulted me would never say something like this (even though all the classroom was in front of the incident.

They don't care about justice or doing their work properly, they want to cover up the stories of their brutality because they think they are geniuses or something and the students know nothing... We couldn't feel free for any reason at that school. And just imagine that we were a good school with not so many incidents like the above...

[statichaos]

Summerhill is a good start, as is the educational philosophy of A.S. Neill. I'm too new to be able to post links, but a quick Google search shouldn't be too hard.

[Revolution starts with U]

Best way to have a good time at school is to know more than your teachers and incessantly call them out when they are wrong (use sources).

That shit is hilarious!

[statichaos]

Best way to have a good time at school is to know more than your teachers and incessantly call them out when they are wrong (use sources).

That shit is hilarious!

It's also a good way to get in a lot of trouble, and to be the target of the teachers' ire on a daily basis.

Not that this should keep you from doing so. Just be aware of the potential consequences.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Remove the one size fits all idea before anything else.

[Hermes]

To Philosophos, would you really recommend separating the 'clever' kids from those that are having a hard time? Shouldn't you pair them together so that they can learn more effectively?

Which doesn't mean that the clever kid wouldn't also be able to learn on his own, but I don't see a reason to completely separate them, I guess.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

The policy of separating students for their grades is discriminative. I stand against because it promotes discrimination and separation, it should promote equality, mutual aid, unity. Cooperation, not competition; equality, not discrimination; Unity, not separation.

[Jason]

I don't know if kids (or even college kids) are even ready for education. If your past 30, then your in better shape for learning.

[Narcissus]

I have a friend who goes to Bedales school, which frankly sounds like it would have suited me quite well, it is very different, but unfortunately is private and costs loads of money to attend. Google it.

[Lord Daedra]

The school of hard knocks.

Ps: I'm black and enjoy Dave Chapelle. Get over it.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Any system where the use of written exams is nil is a good start.

[RedAtheist]

To Philosophos, would you really recommend separating the 'clever' kids from those that are having a hard time? Shouldn't you pair them together so that they can learn more effectively?

Which doesn't mean that the clever kid wouldn't also be able to learn on his own, but I don't see a reason to completely separate them, I guess.

As a former nerdy student I think pairing 'smart' kids with kids that were 'having a hard time' is a bad idea, since the two often resent each other. Often kids that are labelled as 'having a hard time' by the teacher are, at least from the perspective of the nerdy students, bullies who treat the good students like crap, don't care about learning and only want to disrupt the class. If a student genuinely wants to learn and is genuinely struggling, smart students should be given the opportunity to voluntarily aid these students, but I don't think any student should be forced to educate a student who treats them like garbage.

[Hermes]

As a former nerdy student I think pairing 'smart' kids with kids that were 'having a hard time' is a bad idea, since the two often resent each other. Often kids that are labelled as 'having a hard time' by the teacher are, at least from the perspective of the nerdy students, bullies who treat the good students like crap, don't care about learning and only want to disrupt the class. If a student genuinely wants to learn and is genuinely struggling, smart students should be given the opportunity to voluntarily aid these students, but I don't think any student should be forced to educate a student who treats them like garbage.

Currently I would agree, but I think a lot of that has to do with the current educational system and could be changed through reform.

I dunno, though, I'm not really a teacher.

[Blake's Baby]

I think there's a certain amount in the idea that 'bullies' often, but not always, treat other kids like crap because they are frustrated and resentful. Maybe if they were working with the kids that they - let's say formerly - treat like crap, they'd appreciate them a bit more and learn to see them as fellow human beings not some bespectacled aliens.

I think you'd have to be careful and review the situation often and carefully but I can see a sort peer-education project as doing a lot to overcome those divisions between the 'bad (bored, frustrated, disengaged) kids' and the 'good (encouraged, praised) kids'.

Essentailly school divides kids up into whatever the local equivalents of Jocks and Nerds are. Working together might help to break down some of those prejudices.