Are we screwing our kids over with our one size fits a all education?
 

Current situation:
Kids with higher iq get bored and drop out of subjects because the challenge isnt there.
Kids with medium iq do reelatively well at school.
Kids with low iq rebel because the curriculums are too hard for them and drop through the cracks.




My ideal situation:
Grade 6 kids get an iq test.

From there kids go to different schools. Schools catering to the level of intellect a person has. I think that would be a great idea. What do you guys think?


I have seen so many kids lose heart and just stop studying. Many great minds wasted.

Sounds like the beginnings of some sort of Caste system. Probably not the best idea.

Problem 1: you brand kids as either smart or stupid.
Problem 2: All the problematic kids will be bunched up in the same place, which means none of them will have any real chance of getting the help they need.

The problem with 2 is kinda obvious. The problem with 1 is less intuitive, but the thing is that labels tend to shape individuals. So branding kids as stupid means they'll lose their belief that they're capable and they'll act stupid as a result, "proving the label right".

The consequence is a school that helps some but hurst most students. Most importantly it's a school that promotes a segregated, rigid society.

Besides, IQ is merely a measurement of how good you are at solving one limited kind of problem. There are a lot more to being a talented studen than having a high IQ.

Übereil

My son has finished in the top 2% in math and top 3% in reading every year since he started taking standardize Tests (MCA-II in our state). All states in the U.S. are required to give these tests in order to receive federal funding as part of The elementary and secondary education act and The more recent no child left behind act.

We have since enrolled him in several summer classes for advance children, meet we his teachers several times during the school year to make sure he is being challenged in school through extra credit assignments and his school also has math and reading clubs that will further challenge advanced children and we are also looking in to private schools geared towards advanced children.

We do not need schools or government regulating and segregating our children.

We need parents to know what going on in their child's life and get involved in it. This lack of parental involvement and guidance is what is screwing are kids.

You need a license to drive a car or carry a gun but anyone can be a parent and ruin a child's life.

This x10000

That is one excellent post sakichop.

No, we do such a good job at that ourself…

Übereil

Moreso, we're screwing our children with society's fanaticism with celebrities, sports, and consumerism - to the detriment of education.

The more individualized the training, the better IMHO. It would be awesome if our schools had one trained, high quality teacher per student so that student could get extra help exactly where needed and could zip along when the student is understanding quickly. However, even this dyed-in-the-beard liberal doesn't want to raise taxes high enough to pay for that - or dedicate so much of the workforce toward teaching, for that matter.

You could probably get pretty close to the same effect you're looking for by simply reducing class sizes by half. That would (hopefully) increase the amount of time each teacher has to spend so they can individualize learning at least a little more. Plus you don't have to worry about those problem students that, say, have grate math skils but have problehms wit othar subjeks.

Well when I was in school there were advanced or honors classes for the more talented or hardworking students. i hope that hasn't gone away.

Saki is totally correct when he says that the major problem with education is parents. Once upon a time it was parents and teachers working TOGETHER to educate a child, now it seems to be the parents and child working against the teacher. What happens outside of a school classroom is usually FAR more influential than what happens inside one. While I certainly know that a 'one size fits all' model does not work, any student can have success in most any subject if the work can be tailored to their ability level. This can be done in several ways, with 3 level streaming being the easiest IF that streaming is done by subject and NOT as a general categorization. A brilliant student of English may struggle with advanced Maths for example. The argument about labeling students is actually a poor one, especially if divisions are based on subject ability. Most children know whether they are good at something or not, and a label really holds little meaning for them.
Class sizes is a different issue. The smaller the class size, the more time a teacher can spend with each student. Great!! However, not only would the simple cost of needing more teachers then apply, but so would your infrastructure costs. For example, you'd need more classrooms and all the equipment that goes with that. With more staff, there would need to be more paperwork, support staff, admin staff, etc, etc. Wonderful idea, but economically impractical!!

Blaming society doesn't cut it, parents just need to get off their arse and do some parenting. Everyday, rain hail or shine.

They don't. Perhaps if you speak those words to the air when rising your fist and speak in a very sincere tone?

Words like that means nothing. It should be self evident that you can't set a standard by stating it or change the world just by wishful thinking.

And an evolving society cannot be built on the premise that every person need to accomplish a major task without support, experience or training. I do not know of any society in history of mankind that think its a good idea to leave a child to 1-2 people without experience, training or support beyond the western nations and even then only during the recent 100 years. It have always been the case that a number of people have been involved in a childs life, the community, the collective, the tribe, the godfather, the teacher, the neighbor, the grandparents etc. The more involved the greater support the child may have and the more experience is utilized in it's upbringing. It is the very idea that all parenting is up to the parents that is hurting the child since it expects one/two fallible human beings without training or experience to do miracles. I do not know of many areas people think it's a good idea.

Ironically, despite less people surrounding a childs life, as a collective humanity also know more about children today than what we did a hundred years ago. We know that there are no one-size-fits-all, so no one have "the best way" to rise a child (those who think they do tend to be really bad). We know early warning signs and more about how to interpret the signals etc. So just as we have optic fiber and smartphones we do not actually need to have upbringing equal to the stoneage.

The problem with the education system is that it's too rigid - and it's based primarily on the short-term needs of society.

In my personal opinion, the education system should not be a factory producing revenue-generating products.

The problem is that a child can't choose his parents.

If you have parents that care a lot and get involved in the childs life, there is not much of a problem usually. But a lot of both trouble and talented kids have parents who don't care or are working too hard to have time to care. That is when school have to do something to help these children. You'll never get an ideal parent situation, even if that would be the best solution.

You read a lot into my short sentence there JemyM, perhaps I should have tried one of your patented walls of text.

Of course it's not advisable for parents to raise a kid without help; it's not practical, and I suspect it's not even legal in most cases - except for those weird home schooled kids who live in the middle of nowhere.

I was suggesting that - as a parent - it's not OK to throw your hands up and say "society is ruining my child!". It's the parents job to guide their kids through the world we live in. Help them with their school work. Set limits on the kid's use of facebook, etc. Teach them how navigate their way through the barrage of crap that modern life throws at us, and help them find the good stuff.

That takes work, and it needs to be constant.

"they're the governments problem now!" - Homer Simpson.

If the parents are that bad that they're relying on a school to help their kid, then that kid is doing it tuff.

Do you remember school? Teachers are not experts in child behavior. They know (a little bit) about maths, English, etc. They have 20 kids to deal with at a time, so even if they do by chance have what it takes to help a wayward child to get back on track, they don't have time. At the end of the year the kid goes on their way regardless, so there's no consistency.

Schools are designed to teach kids the basics, not HOW to learn, and certainly not how to behave.

The only thing wrong with what you have written is that in most schools, the number of children per class would be closer to 30 than to 20.

Considering their job is to teach children that sounds like a rather serious competence gap.

Considering the amount of kids who don't get those things from other places, that sounds like a major design flaw. Especially since school are the ideal place for kids to learn those things. They need to be prepped, but to learn how to treat other pepole you need other pepole to train on, which you'll get in school. And to learn how to learn you need teaching from someone who knows - and not all parents know that.

Übereil, who's heard Swedish class sizes are nearing 35 students per class

Hey you're right, those lazy teachers should be spending their spare time studying child psychology.

School starts at 5 years of age here - too late. And again, teachers are there to teach. If little Johnny is a biter then the teacher does not have the time or training to deal with it. Little Johnny's parents need to be hauled in and asked to sort their son out, otherwise he'll hold back the whole class while the teacher attempts to teach him right from wrong.

And if he's going home and biting the family dog with impunity, then the teacher is wasting their time anyway.