[Mongoose]

I'd like to know what area of the country considers 75% "good."  Even the public schools around here manage in the high 90s, and I can't think of anyone in my class who left the school for reasons other than transferring to another.

[Polpolion]

.......and I went to a  rich, good, suburban school,

Evidently not. My school is certainly not rich, and the largest freshmen class class I've ever been in was 36 kids (a required sophomore economics class) the smallest being 14 kids (Programming II), and the average being about 34 kids, all with a total school population of 6000. I have no idea how your school managed to put that many kids in one classroom if it was really that good and rich.

[Mars]

I went to a fairly good high school with ~30 students per class and a graduation rate in the high 80s

[Daniel P]

Well it about 360 students on 12 grade (Our school is about 1440 people). About 90% graduated. Each class avg around 20 to 26 students.

I never saw a person who was illiterate but I got some theories about why we got some illiterate people.

1:  They hate having a decent education.  You know those people who sit at the back of the class not answering teachers questions and/or don't give a crap about their education. ( I know some people at school who do this)
2:  They see no use in reading a book.
3:  They were never able to learn how to read in
the first place.

edit= grammar 

[Kosh]

I'd like to know what area of the country considers 75% "good."  Even the public schools around here manage in the high 90s, and I can't think of anyone in my class who left the school for reasons other than transferring to another.

It's considered good only because it is marginally better than the US national average

[Polpolion]

Graduation rates in the largest school districts range from 21.7 percent in Detroit

lol. Couldn't help but laugh.

Oh well, people are retards. Namely the people trying to teach the kids, which is where I think the problem lies. Our collages of education seriously need to rethink their syllabus. Course, a little more effort on the student's behalf couldn't do anything but help.

[Kosh]

Graduation rates in the largest school districts range from 21.7 percent in Detroit

lol. Couldn't help but laugh.

Oh well, people are retards. Namely the people trying to teach the kids, which is where I think the problem lies. Our collages of education seriously need to rethink their syllabus. Course, a little more effort on the student's behalf couldn't do anything but help.

In my experience usually the problem is the students don't want to do any work, so they don't.

[BloodEagle]

I remember (from the good-ol' horrid college days) a professor (who taught Comp. II, by the way) that repeatedly made mistakes regarding punctuation and the use of e.g. and i.e..

Those were the days that made me want to start drinking, smoking, and smoking. Fortunately my willpower lasted long enough for me to escape that Hellhole before I developed any serious disorders.

By the way, have you met my niece? Her name is Marcee, and she never ages.

[Daniel P]

Well it about 360 students on 12 grade (Our school is about 1440 people). About 90% graduated. Each class avg around 20 to 26 students.

I never saw a person who was illiterate but I got some theories about why we got some illiterate people.

1:  They hate having a decent education.  You know those people who sit at the back of the class not answering teachers questions and/or don't give a crap about their education. ( I know some people at school who do this)
2:  They see no use in reading a book.
3:  They were never able to learn how to read in
the first place.

edit= grammar 

yea, My grammar not very good. [Thank for pointing it out] But, My reading skills is very good.

Also I think where the school at might affected the literacy rate. Like a school in a gang affected area. You will see more drop outs and illiterate people and if a school is at a low crime area you will not find that much dropouts. 

[Polpolion]

Graduation rates in the largest school districts range from 21.7 percent in Detroit

lol. Couldn't help but laugh.

Oh well, people are retards. Namely the people trying to teach the kids, which is where I think the problem lies. Our collages of education seriously need to rethink their syllabus. Course, a little more effort on the student's behalf couldn't do anything but help.

In my experience usually the problem is the students don't want to do any work, so they don't.

If you leave the problem solely up to the students to fix, then the problem will never get fixed. If teachers think that telling the students that they have to try in class will get anything fixed, then it's probably those teachers that are actually contributing to this problem.

The teachers need to figure out how to present an adequate amount of information to students in a manner that will make the students want to learn it. The students may very well be the cause of the problem, but only what the teachers do can be the solution.


And BE, if you get that pissed off at such punctuation errors, then I'm surprised that you weren't smoking and drinking before. It might just be me, but there are things that piss me off much more than punctuation errors.

EDIT: Woops. Looks like me and Kosh had a misunderstanding. Kosh was still explaining the problem, and I was on my way towards a solution. But you were right, that is the problem. And if the teachers can't motivate the students...

[Mobius]

As I stated in an earlier post of mine (and I'm assuming Mobius is using Paradise Lost in the same sense that I am) Paradise Lost is metonymy for literature in general. Fine. Don't read Paradise Lost; but if you want to be considered educated you have to have read SOMETHING. Paradise Lost was initially just an example of a work of literature.

As you and I have both pointed out, this raises the question of what is to be expected of an educated individual? The academic community has unofficially adopted some sort of standard for an education, however. References to older Literature abound in modern literature and even cartoons and comics. If you're educated, you get the allusion and the point is made. If you don't get the allusion, the author probably isn't talking to you. You can claim that an education is what you make it out to be, but the reality is that being able to have an academic discussion entails a certain amount of conformity. If we're talking about politics, and I describe someone as Machiavellian, you either get it or you don't. If you've read The Prince (or at least have a working knowledge of the principles) you understand the point I'm trying to make.

Correct.

Well, it's hard to point out what turns people into cultured individuals...but there ARE things people with a decent culture should know...if you don't know that WWII lasted for six years and completely ignore important protagonists of that dramatic period like Churchill and Hitler...well, you're pretty ignorant.

IMO decent people should know things that influence the modern world in a direct way. If you ignore the basics of your society then you don't deserve to do things like casting a vote.

This is just my opinion...

[MR_T3D]

^
the only problem with rescinding stupid people's right to vote is that they have more guns than the intelligent

[KappaWing]

I don't know if any of you guys were aware of this, but in the Detroit Public Schools, the graduation rate is 25%. Thats right, the graduation rate. Not the droupout rate.

Not just in the inner city either, the southern suburbs, (where all the blue collar jobs are, a very depressed area right now) is sinking down to this level. Not only are Detroit parents sending their kids to these schools to escape DPS, but the standards are ridiculously low. An ex of mine was from that area, he didn't even have to TAKE final exams as long as he SHOWED UP to school so many days per semester!

EDIT: Only read to page 2 before posting, I see its dropped even lower!

The problem is certainly the kids, their upbringing, the culture, the area, etc. Its really a different world.

[Polpolion]

Well, it's hard to point out what turns people into cultured individuals...but there ARE things people with a decent culture should know...if you don't know that WWII lasted for six years and completely ignore important protagonists of that dramatic period like Churchill and Hitler...well, you're pretty ignorant.

lawl no stupid wwii didn't start in 1939 world war ii started in 1935 when italy invaded ethiopia or you could get really into it and say that wwi and wwii were one war with a re-population break in the middle why are you so ignorant and uncultured

[/now you know why that mentality doesn't mean anything]

Anyways, I believe we've established the fact that the graduation rate is the kids' fault. Now, hypothetically, how would all of you fix it? Or do we feel smug enough just by recognizing the problem and repeating it a bunch of times? (EDIT: Actually, I think that's one of the problems with today's culture. No one tries to fix anything they see not functioning properly)

I personally think that we can fix this issue even while completely ignoring the entire culture issue. I think that if we make classrooms more discussion oriented and grade people on a combination of participation and insight, then things would be a lot better. Now that probably will help with literature courses, maybe a bit with language arts in general, too. In the sciences and maths, things would have to be focused around the teacher a bit more, but I think it would be ideal for a teacher to give the entire class a problem to solve and then have a moderated discussion about how to solve it. It would not only teach problem solving, but it would promote ownership of the material and it would help with self-teaching. Sure, the teacher would have to step in to help everyone. Also, this way the classes would be able to go at their own pace. The classes that are smarter would be able to move on faster, and the slower ones would be able to take their time.

But then you have the people who sleep all day and stuff. What we do with them is you take everyone who you see who just doesn't try and still fails, but you stick them with one teacher. Yes, one teacher to one student. It'd cost a lot, but it'd be worth it. With one teacher the entire day working with one student, eventually any kid would get the point and start working. Eventually he would be re-integrated into the system.

At first review, it seems a bit radical and expensive to just switch to it, but I think that properly developed and with decent execution it be an excellent alternative to much of the system we have now.

[Mika]

Thanks for providing today's best laugh, Colonel!

Salute!

Mika

[Daniel P]

Well, it's hard to point out what turns people into cultured individuals...but there ARE things people with a decent culture should know...if you don't know that WWII lasted for six years and completely ignore important protagonists of that dramatic period like Churchill and Hitler...well, you're pretty ignorant.

lawl no stupid wwii didn't start in 1939 world war ii started in 1935 when italy invaded ethiopia or you could get really into it and say that wwi and wwii were one war with a re-population break in the middle why are you so ignorant and uncultured

[/now you know why that mentality doesn't mean anything]

Anyways, I believe we've established the fact that the graduation rate is the kids' fault. Now, hypothetically, how would all of you fix it? Or do we feel smug enough just by recognizing the problem and repeating it a bunch of times? (EDIT: Actually, I think that's one of the problems with today's culture. No one tries to fix anything they see not functioning properly)

I personally think that we can fix this issue even while completely ignoring the entire culture issue. I think that if we make classrooms more discussion oriented and grade people on a combination of participation and insight, then things would be a lot better. Now that probably will help with literature courses, maybe a bit with language arts in general, too. In the sciences and maths, things would have to be focused around the teacher a bit more, but I think it would be ideal for a teacher to give the entire class a problem to solve and then have a moderated discussion about how to solve it. It would not only teach problem solving, but it would promote ownership of the material and it would help with self-teaching. Sure, the teacher would have to step in to help everyone. Also, this way the classes would be able to go at their own pace. The classes that are smarter would be able to move on faster, and the slower ones would be able to take their time.

But then you have the people who sleep all day and stuff. What we do with them is you take everyone who you see who just doesn't try and still fails, but you stick them with one teacher. Yes, one teacher to one student. It'd cost a lot, but it'd be worth it. With one teacher the entire day working with one student, eventually any kid would get the point and start working. Eventually he would be re-integrated into the system.

At first review, it seems a bit radical and expensive to just switch to it, but I think that properly developed and with decent execution it be an excellent alternative to much of the system we have now.

Good idea. What about if a person who don't care about his/her education.

[Polpolion]

But then you have the people who sleep all day and stuff. What we do with them is you take everyone who you see who just doesn't try and still fails, but you stick them with one teacher. Yes, one teacher to one student. It'd cost a lot, but it'd be worth it. With one teacher the entire day working with one student, eventually any kid would get the point and start working. Eventually he would be re-integrated into the system.

Oh and you stop letting people drop out. That rule is just stupid.

EDIT: Maybe the parents could do something earlier on in the kids life to counter this apathy, too. What's different about the way kids are being raised 14 years ago as opposed to 40 years ago?

EDIT2: Either way, I don't think there's much that we can expect to get done with the kids doing anything on their own. To be frank, you can't expect any kid in any part of the world to independently decide to stop completely slacking off and start applying themselves in full in school. A child's psychology just doesn't work that way. It might have been able to if we had caught the problem before things got out of hand 20 years ago, but we're beyond the point of the kids fixing the problems without us having to touch normal teaching/parenting methods.

[colecampbell666]

My school is 1200 strong, and I have about 25 people in each class. While I understand that classes like drama and gym are compulsory to try and "discover hidden talent" or some BS like that, I don't understand why that rule applies to all. I maintain marks in the mid-high nineties in math/science, but only in the mid-low nineties in the artsy/physical classes. It's dragging my marks down having to take these classes, and most of the time I finish my drama assignment within 10 minutes of the 1.25 hour class and read for the rest. I'd much rather be applying myself to learning Java or learning complex math than trying to imagine that I'm Optimus Prime.

And also, on the OT, the Canadian school system shunts students along until grade 10 with their "Two Year Plan". Don't pass this year? No problem. You're guaranteed to pass next year, EVEN IF YOU DON'T ATTEND A SINGLE DAY. Literally. And it's also impossible to fail, you have to fail two core subjects (English, Math, Science, Social Studies) AND have your parents permission to fail. And then once these students arrive in grade 10, they have to build on concepts that they never learned, because they were shunted along before they learned them. It's idiotic.

[Kosh]

And if the teachers can't motivate the students...

So if the teacher gives the student homework, and the student doesn't do it, beyond giving bad marks and calling parents there isn't anything else than can be done. To just blame this soley on the teacher is grossly irresponsible. Everyone has to do their part to make it work: parents, teachers, and students.

[BloodEagle]

And BE, if you get that pissed off at such punctuation errors, then I'm surprised that you weren't smoking and drinking before. It might just be me, but there are things that piss me off much more than punctuation errors.

It took me a while to find that. 

I was using that as one example of many. If the Comp. II professors were like that, imagine the rest of them.

---

EDIT: Maybe the parents could do something earlier on in the kids life to counter this apathy, too. What's different about the way kids are being raised 14 years ago as opposed to 40 years ago?

The rod? 

---

So if the teacher gives the student homework, and the student doesn't do it, beyond giving bad marks and calling parents there isn't anything else than can be done. To just blame this soley on the teacher is grossly irresponsible. Everyone has to do their part to make it work: parents, teachers, and students.

QFT.