Generally my beliefs are the same as my parents concerning Confucius’s ideas, especially since most of them are considered quite natural (in how things should be at least) in the modern world. Examples would be things like: “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions”, or “If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wickedness”. A major thing that my parents and I disagree on however, is the importance of education. Confucius believed that education was extremely important, that everybody should have the right to education - not just the rich and those who had status. People nowadays though (namely adults), are going at it the wrong way. Nowadays, people must have education, it’s essential, or so they think. You don’t even get a choice. You’re going to school – or else.

Oh there are tons of arguments to promote forced education… It will help improve the quality of your later life! Your parents won’t always be there for you. How will you get a job otherwise? Children don’t know what’s best for themselves, they are not mature enough – we force them now, so that they may appreciate it later. (Which by the way, is assuming that all children are ignorant) But I, on the other hand, think that school is quite useless past the elementary level – especially since you probably won’t need more than half of what you learn in school once you’re out in the world. Sure, I agree some school is a must; there is some basic knowledge you have to know, but past that? I’ll take ICP as an example: do I really need to know that positive ions have smaller atomic radii than their neutral atoms, and that negative ions have larger atomic radii than their neutral atoms?

Today’s parents are judging children purely based off their grades, they think about nothing but getting into a good college, or earning straight “A”s, but in the end, does all of that really matter? I think going to school past a certain level should be a choice, or at least the subjects we take should be, so we can select what we will truly require when we are adults.

As a man once said, “For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life.”

I think that either a high school or trade school should be compulsory... or at least free to the public if not mandatory.
It's not a matter of getting a job, it's a matter of getting a GOOD job.

Way to generalize all parents.
It isn't so much a matter of "WOW MY SON GOT AN A IN CHEMISTRY". My professor once told me something to this effect: No company or boss is really going to care what grade you got. Unless you're going to be a teacher or textbook writer, the fact that you took it and got a decent grade is enough. It shows that you have the ability and the dedication, and that's pretty much valuable for every field. The fact that you knew the stuff when you took the test (or still do) isn't what counts as much as the fact that it took a lot of hard work to get you through. School isn't always about "MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THESE THINGS FOREVER" as much as it's supposed to teach you discipline and allow you to demonstrate your dedication.

It already is. It's called "college".

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2008, 4:41 pm by Mini Moose 2707.

I see where you're coming from. You think most of what you're learning is useless. A lot of people in high school think this. On the other hand, your parents and most working adults seem to agree that your education is extremely important.

I'm not big on philosophy, but I'm sure lots of dudes (if not Confucius himself) said something or other about listening to your elders.

Father and son is indeed one of the five Confucian relationships.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=confucian+relationships&btnG=Search

How useful do you think education is? ***

Irony wins.

Education is very important. I haven't read the whole topic yet, I thought I would just give my initial thoughts here.

The whole topic? Three posts?

I really didn't read any of it; what's your point? The posts are long!

That's not ironic.

You pointing that out as ironic, however, is.

I dont know why people bitch about having to go to school,i acctually think learning is fun because you know more about everything. and yeah i think school should be more like teaching things that will help you in the job you want in the future,instead of telling you more than you really need to know for that job.

While in some cases the argument can be made that too much is "expected" from students, it is a point that is all too often taken out of context. Rebellious teenagers use it as an excuse not to try, and the resulting problem with this generation's youth is a massive amount of ignorance and lack of any knowledge whatsoever. For example, a 1993 survey found that 50% of American high school students did not know what the Holocaust was, and a figure from Ken Burns' 2007 The War finds that over half of the adults in the US believe that the United States and Germany were allied against the Soviet Union in World War II.

If there is a pervasive problem with education today, it's a lack of it.

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No company or boss is really going to care what grade you got.

They're going to care where your college diplomas come from, and most deans do care what grades you get.

Why even bother replying with a useless post?

The fact that he says he doesn't think education is very important at the same time that he posts an incoherent topic question is ironic, because he shows education's importance at the same time he denies it's importance. (having good communication skills in order to not come off as a somewhat of a dumbass -- although I don't truly think he is one -- could easily be considered important)

Maybe you pointing out that me pointing out that what he pointed out had irony was ironic.


It all goes to helping you become a better problem solver (math is all about this), and challege handler. And it will help some people get started in the career path they wish to undertake -- as in, there are a variety of classes out there and the chances someone will not find at least one class to help them get started in their career is absurd. Science in general simply helps you become a better informed member of society -- very important.


Your generalization of parent's fails really badly -- that or your sampling of parents is completely different than of what I know, and also very limited. Even my mom who expects great grades from me doesn't expect 'Straight As', although I'm not expected to get below B's, or more than 3 B/B+'s tops. And that's on the very strict end. Most kids parents (the ones I know who aren't in my high level classes) are happy to see their kids not get anything worse than a C and just get some A's and B's. Most kids aren't ready to make that 'leaving school' decision until they're a couple years into high school anyways, which wouldn't change much of anything. Most kids would choose to drop school just because of their inherent hate for it, without thinking of the consequences, and they're not as thoughtful about it as you are. Said kids will probably grow up and go "Wtf, I really should have stayed in school instead of leading myself into the career of x."

There you go, that wasn't so hard now, was it?

DTBK: Cite legitimate sources for those outrageous statistics. If everybody on this internet forum knows we fought Germany in WWII, why do you think 50 % of America wouldn't? Read Damned Lies and Statistics and then stop quoting bad ones to make your point.

Education is the most important thing humanity has ever come up with. Bar none.

But institutionalism and bureaucracy has warped the goals of education. The goals are no longer to teach knowledge, but to recite information, useful or not. The same situation happens in any large business or institution. People forget what it is the institution is there to do.
Businesses were originally set aside to provide a service so that individuals did not have to create all their tools and goods. These businesses were accepted because they could provide something better than what the individual managed to create, because the artisan could hone his craft. While most of the products today are still better than what most people can make on their own, big companies no longer focus on providing services to people. They find a way to make a cheaper product, and mass produce it. Walmart for instance, creates many products, and does so cheaply, but everything I have bought at Walmart has dissatisfied me to the point where I avoid the store at all costs.
Wildlife preservation is another field I have touched on before. Their goal was to help animals survive, and prevent developing businesses from clearing the planet of all it's various environments. However, this goal has been twisted into setting up a list of "endangered" species and blocking all human activity from specific areas. This means that indigenous peoples who live peaceably with their environment are often times forced off of land when it is set up as a refuge. Also the preservation institutions no longer care about animals unless there is a direct threat to them. For instance polar bears, which are only now being considered for the endangered species list, have been driven from their natural habitat, and have been intermingling with brown bears. So far, wildlife protection agencies have been very limited in their intervention to help out this species which is not yet "endangered" but will be within a few years, guaranteed.
Medicine, which (If I may take an idea from Patch Adams) is intended to improve the quality of the lives we live. Yet only 10% of the worlds medical funding goes into 90% of the worlds diseases. Do we really need to spend more money to cure obesity? Heres the solution: exercise! What about Chagas Disease, or Cholera, or Yellow Fever... Nobody cares about THOSE inflictions.
Mass production has enveloped our way of life, to the point where people no longer understand anything outside of their allotted field of study. (I know this. A friend of mine works as a general handyman for the college we go to, and it is surprising when engineers request help to fix a leaky sink, when all my friend has to do is turn the knob under the basin. ENGINEERS!)
Teaching has become for the sake of teaching because if you can follow a curriculum, in the eyes of bureaucracy, your a more productive teacher than one who may teach more practical issues, yet who may miss one or two issues which the kids will never see again. Teaching has transformed from being taught for kids benefits, to being a way for adults to say with statistics, "my kid is better than yours." It has also transformed kids into this system. Learning the material in the class is no longer so that you may use it in real life, but rather to study for the next test, or further your career as a student/professional.
In the world of today, Gemeinschaft is no more, all is Gesellschaft.

What I'm trying to say is that we should be able to choose our wanted classes by middle or high school, because then it lets us strive towards something. If I'm learning geometry, I might need to know physics, but do I really need to learn about atoms?
Of course, you can argue that we don't know what we want by then, and it'll be senseless to. However, I know several friends who strive to be writers, and haven't got off track since elementary.

Yes, maybe my parental influence is different from yours. I am Asian. Most Asian parents are strict as hell. I noticed that American parents usually treat their kids lighter than Asian parents to (not wanting to be stereotyping here).

Let’s just get this straight: I do not hate school. I enjoy school, but there’s a large flaw in it, as pointed out by Rantent. Rantent pretty much pointed out all of what I didn’t say.

Since you are agreeing 100 % with his points, this reply is as much to you as it is to Rantent, Kainami.
Oh, so the goal of education ultimately is to help you get a good career?
Yep, sounds pretty pointless to me.

Someone thinking education is unecessary being uneducated is ironic? I think you need to look up the definition of irony.

Someone (ie, you) not knowing the definition of irony, while pointing out the importance of education is indeed ironic. I did not support either side for pro-anti-education, therefore my statement is not ironic. (FYI, I'm pro-education, so it's still not ironic.) And Dapper continues to fail. Hard.

Look, thing is, you sort of look like an idiot right now.

Is it not ironic if the man who said fire departments are unnecessary has his house burned down?

This guy was saying "Look, I don't need education to be smart," yet Dapperdan was pointing out that his very topic showed a lack of smartness.
I know irony is kind of hard to get, making it difficult to comprehensively and concisely define. Here's one though
I think that fits.

Yes, because media polls are never legitimate sources. Amazingly enough, if you don't believe me, it is not exactly difficult to Google it.

This article talks about the ambiguity of another statistic in the same poll, but

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In the second AJC/Roper poll, "Of those with less than a high school education, 55 percent knew what the Holocaust was. This rose to 74 percent among high school graduates, 87 percent among college graduates, and 92 percent among those with advanced degrees." (The New York Times, July 8, 1994.)

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v15/v15n1p25_Raven.html

If you ever actually took the time to watch The War instead of attempting to insult my facts, you would know the exact number is one half (though I correct myself to consider only high school seniors).

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Burns finally decided to take up the World War Two project when he heard two facts: one, that one thousand World War Two veterans die every day, and, two, that a large percentage of high school seniors believe that the United States was allied with Germany against Russia instead of the other way around.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/303112/sneak_preview_ken_burns_the_war.html

I find the results hard to believe because I've never met anyone who didn't know about the holocaust (that wasn't a small child).

I guess it still proves the importance of education, if nothing else.