Imagine with me for a moment, a corporation. Let's call them Widgets Inc. White Collar John walks into Widget Inc. for his first day on the job as, let's say, an engineer. He's expecting to spend his day designing widgets and widget-related items, working out problems with widgets, and so on. When he shows up to work, his boss comes by and dumps a bunch of scantron multiple choice tests on his desk and tells him to spend the next four years filling them in. Meanwhile, Widgets Inc. goes out of business because all of its employees are wasting time filling in tests instead of designing widgets to be sold.
High school is similarly useless, the difference being that it's government funded, so it won't go out of business until the state collapses, at which point inefficient education policies will be the least of our worries. And education shouldn't be a for-profit venture anyway, but the point here isn't that the school system should be turning a profit, but rather that the school system should do something.
One of the things the school system claims to achieve is to prepare students for real life. I think I've proven above that school and real life don't have much in common. I suggest we reform school so that it does. Specifically, in real life, the goal is always to create a product or provide a service. Students should also seek to create a product or provide a service. Being that these will be created/provided by students and not professionals, these can be expected to be of much lower quality, of course, but it will still act as a practice run for reality.
Another supposed objective of the school system is to teach students valuable skills. In this it also fails, which is why a large percentage of high school students entering college require remedial courses in math and science. Something that educational professionals have recently caught onto, however, is that hands on learning is more effective than classroom lectures. Conveniently, the system I proposed above is very hands on.
Teachers, then, would truly be teacher, not wardens. Their job would be to teach students how to do things, not pass tests. A lot of the details would be left to the discretion of the students, the only real requirement of any given assignment being to demonstrate the ability to apply certain skills by giving the finished product certain features, similar to real life where the only real requirement is to satisfy the demands of a customer. The details don't matter to the customer and they shouldn't matter to the teacher, either. The student would then be free to do whatever he wished with the finished product, whether that product be a literal material good, the results of an experiment, a piece of writing, or what-have-you. The student would willingly come to classes to learn how to do these things, because the student would have a project to complete, which is much more compelling than the threat of a test. It give one and immediate sense of purpose and an immediate sense of satisfaction upon its completion.
Teachers would also likely have a good deal more job satisfaction. Their students in general would have much more respect for them because the knowledge they are imparting has clear and immediate use. Students and teachers alike would also have more flexible schedules. In a system like this there is no need to have set class periods. You see, the day is already split up into twenty-four units of time known as "hours," which are not only more numerous and thus more flexible than the seven periods a day in High Schools, but which can also be broken up into even smaller units for even greater flexibility. Universities figured this out, and I don't see why High Schools should be different.
This would also hypothetically give teachers something to compete for; students. Teachers who are available more often and who are helpful and knowledgeable in their subjects will get more students, which would hypothetically translate directly into more money. Teachers may not find the concept of having to compete with other teachers appealing, but considering that right now you're paid a pittance to herd cats who make fun of you behind your back, I honestly think that any job that actually makes use of your ability and desire to teach would be an improvement.
-Ashen, educationliberationfront@gmail.com
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Dazibao 2 (Distribution Grade Attack on the Public School System)
School is not for learning. It's not about preparing you for the real world. It's not about teaching you valuable skills. And it's certainly got nothing to do with satisfying curiosity. Most students believe that school is, in fact, meant to prepare you for the real world and teach you valuable skills, and most of those who don't can't explain what school really is for. After all, the government pours millions of dollars every week into the Department of Education, so school must be about something. But it's not about what you think.
School does not prepare you for the real world. Ask any teacher why they make rules that almost all of their students disagree with, and they will tell you, point blank, that their class is a dictatorship, not a democracy, sometimes using those words exactly. The real world is a democracy, not a dictatorship. It would seem illogical to contend that subjecting students to a fascist police state will prepare them for life in a democratic republic. It doesn't help that most of what you do in school is pointless busywork meant to keep you busy. No real life manager is going to give his employees work for works sake if he wants to stay a manager for very long.
School does not teach you valuable skills. The things you learn in school are designed to help you pass tests. A teacher will list off for you a bunch of facts without bothering to connect them to the real world in any way (and indeed, the teacher probably doesn't much care how they're connected to the real world), and then will ask you to regurgitate the facts on a test a week later. Once the test is passed, you will most likely forget the dissonant information almost immediately. If you hold onto it, it is because you made connections to the information yourself. That's why, when the teacher asks if anyone remembers what they learned last year, no one raises their hand.
The purpose of schools is to keep teenagers in school for eight hours a day so they don't spend their time kicking puppies instead. More than eight hours, actually, homework takes up plenty of time as well. Of course, the teachers probably don't know this. I don't blame them, they've been just as brutally abused by this system as the students. They come into the profession usually intending to teach the next generation, to instill a love of learning in them, or some equally idealistic goal. They're then taken by the system and reduced to petty wardens of a glorified prison.
The primary problem with the school system is that almost no one cares to think about its effects and side-effects. Without sitting down to think things through, we all simply believe what we're told. So what are the effects of school? Students are indeed kept in school for eight hours a day, and presumably are kept quiet at home for however long it takes them to do their homework. But they're also left to their own devices to build their own society within the school. Within this society there is no source of resources except the superior society that exists outside it, and all physical violence is strictly regulated by that society, so the only resource left to the students is status. Popularity, being a zero-sum game, naturally breeds fierce competition and, thus, lots of spite between rival factions. This was never true historically, and thus it must be assumed that either hormones are a recent invention, or else they are not the culprit. This hostile environment is self-propogating, and cannot be undone unless it is directly reformed. Despite the good
intentions of the anti-bullying programs, they cannot succeed. They're fighting the very nature of the society students live in.
The true purpose of school is to educate. I suggest we do just that. I suggest that instead of having students mindlessly regurgitate facts a week after they've been shoved down their throats, that we allow the students to prove their knowledge by using it. There are no multiple-choice tests in real life, but there are projects, thus projects and not tests will be the true measure of a person capabilities.
Further, there is no need to continue wasting students time with specialized information. Algebra in general is a generalized skill that everyone benefits from learning. The ability to calculate projectile motion on other planets, a skill inexplicably taught in some Algebra classes, is highly specialized and need not be learned by any student who isn't interested in such things. I believe the only reason this unit was added in is because it is tangentially related to Algebra and they need to fill up space.
What I suggest is a system that will make teenagers happier, more respectful of other people, and better respected by other people. I suggest a system that is more rewarding to students and teachers alike. I suggest a system that is more efficient in producing effective employees. I suggest a system that will render the bulk of the Department of Education’s bureaucracy useless, and that’s where I expect to find most of my opposition. Everyone else has a lot to gain.
-Ashen
School does not prepare you for the real world. Ask any teacher why they make rules that almost all of their students disagree with, and they will tell you, point blank, that their class is a dictatorship, not a democracy, sometimes using those words exactly. The real world is a democracy, not a dictatorship. It would seem illogical to contend that subjecting students to a fascist police state will prepare them for life in a democratic republic. It doesn't help that most of what you do in school is pointless busywork meant to keep you busy. No real life manager is going to give his employees work for works sake if he wants to stay a manager for very long.
School does not teach you valuable skills. The things you learn in school are designed to help you pass tests. A teacher will list off for you a bunch of facts without bothering to connect them to the real world in any way (and indeed, the teacher probably doesn't much care how they're connected to the real world), and then will ask you to regurgitate the facts on a test a week later. Once the test is passed, you will most likely forget the dissonant information almost immediately. If you hold onto it, it is because you made connections to the information yourself. That's why, when the teacher asks if anyone remembers what they learned last year, no one raises their hand.
The purpose of schools is to keep teenagers in school for eight hours a day so they don't spend their time kicking puppies instead. More than eight hours, actually, homework takes up plenty of time as well. Of course, the teachers probably don't know this. I don't blame them, they've been just as brutally abused by this system as the students. They come into the profession usually intending to teach the next generation, to instill a love of learning in them, or some equally idealistic goal. They're then taken by the system and reduced to petty wardens of a glorified prison.
The primary problem with the school system is that almost no one cares to think about its effects and side-effects. Without sitting down to think things through, we all simply believe what we're told. So what are the effects of school? Students are indeed kept in school for eight hours a day, and presumably are kept quiet at home for however long it takes them to do their homework. But they're also left to their own devices to build their own society within the school. Within this society there is no source of resources except the superior society that exists outside it, and all physical violence is strictly regulated by that society, so the only resource left to the students is status. Popularity, being a zero-sum game, naturally breeds fierce competition and, thus, lots of spite between rival factions. This was never true historically, and thus it must be assumed that either hormones are a recent invention, or else they are not the culprit. This hostile environment is self-propogating, and cannot be undone unless it is directly reformed. Despite the good
intentions of the anti-bullying programs, they cannot succeed. They're fighting the very nature of the society students live in.
The true purpose of school is to educate. I suggest we do just that. I suggest that instead of having students mindlessly regurgitate facts a week after they've been shoved down their throats, that we allow the students to prove their knowledge by using it. There are no multiple-choice tests in real life, but there are projects, thus projects and not tests will be the true measure of a person capabilities.
Further, there is no need to continue wasting students time with specialized information. Algebra in general is a generalized skill that everyone benefits from learning. The ability to calculate projectile motion on other planets, a skill inexplicably taught in some Algebra classes, is highly specialized and need not be learned by any student who isn't interested in such things. I believe the only reason this unit was added in is because it is tangentially related to Algebra and they need to fill up space.
What I suggest is a system that will make teenagers happier, more respectful of other people, and better respected by other people. I suggest a system that is more rewarding to students and teachers alike. I suggest a system that is more efficient in producing effective employees. I suggest a system that will render the bulk of the Department of Education’s bureaucracy useless, and that’s where I expect to find most of my opposition. Everyone else has a lot to gain.
-Ashen
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
ELFCON 5
Hello, everyone. This is Ashen, just informing you that the nation is currently at ELFCON 5. This means that ELF has little to no effect on the nation at large, and is thus not much of a threat to any bureaucracies. Look on the bright side, at least we don't have a whole lot of work to do.
ELFCON 4 means that we have begun to draw attention and support. Local news is starting to pick up on us and has maybe given us a few reports slipped in at the end of the broadcast, or shoved into some spare space on the newspaper.
ELFCON 3 is when the nation at large starts noticing us. It means that people know we're here and that lines are being drawn between various politicians and organizations. It means that ELF is beginning to become a national issue, and that the battle between ELF and bureacracy is about to begin. At this point, the government may begin making minor reforms.
ELFCON 2 means that ELF is a major national issue, that everyone who follows the news knows about us, and that our ideas for education reform are being seriously considered by the government.
ELFCON 1 is the critical moment. It means that the government has actually begun implementing meaningful reform concerning the education system, has begun testing the ELF system of education in certain school districts. It's the final moment that will decide who wins the war between reform and stagnation.
ELFAGEDDON means we won. It means the ELF education system, or some variant of it which we have agreed is equally desirable, has been implemented throughout the entire nation.
Things are cushy and safe in ELFCON 5, but they're also annoyingly repressive and dystopian. The higher the ELFCON scale gets, the harder life will be for all of us, but if we can achieve ELFAGEDDON, it will be worth it.
-Ashen
ELFCON 4 means that we have begun to draw attention and support. Local news is starting to pick up on us and has maybe given us a few reports slipped in at the end of the broadcast, or shoved into some spare space on the newspaper.
ELFCON 3 is when the nation at large starts noticing us. It means that people know we're here and that lines are being drawn between various politicians and organizations. It means that ELF is beginning to become a national issue, and that the battle between ELF and bureacracy is about to begin. At this point, the government may begin making minor reforms.
ELFCON 2 means that ELF is a major national issue, that everyone who follows the news knows about us, and that our ideas for education reform are being seriously considered by the government.
ELFCON 1 is the critical moment. It means that the government has actually begun implementing meaningful reform concerning the education system, has begun testing the ELF system of education in certain school districts. It's the final moment that will decide who wins the war between reform and stagnation.
ELFAGEDDON means we won. It means the ELF education system, or some variant of it which we have agreed is equally desirable, has been implemented throughout the entire nation.
Things are cushy and safe in ELFCON 5, but they're also annoyingly repressive and dystopian. The higher the ELFCON scale gets, the harder life will be for all of us, but if we can achieve ELFAGEDDON, it will be worth it.
-Ashen
Philosophy 1 (Light and Dark)
This isn't Dazibao in that, being philosophical it's not really meant to convert a lot of people to our cause. It's just me, musing about life, but you can feel free to pass them around if you want. Most of the things here are metaphorical. In the post below, for example, I refer to the Light and the Dark as two components of the spirit, however Light and Dark do not, to my knowledge, physically exist except as a particle/wave and the absence thereof. I use them as metaphors in the post below.
There are two basic components to the human spirit. The Light, the good side, contains our hopes and our dreams, our empathy and our compassion. This side is what makes us want to become a Hollywood script writer, start our own business, or find the cure for cancer. It wants to accomplish things, to be important. It is ambition and love. This side of us is the force for progress in the world.
The Dark side of the spirit, on the other hand, contains our primal desires, our anger and our lust. It’s what makes us want to lash out at the people who hurt us, shut ourselves in our room for the rest of the day when life goes horribly wrong, or fill our days with cheap, hollow thrills. It wants to have fun right now and worry about the future when it gets here. It broods, it hates, and it lusts. This side of us is primarily a force for decay.
If my reputation has preceded me, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the public education system. Well, guess for me which side the public education system wants you to embrace. Given I don’t like the public education system at all, you’d probably think the Dark. Wrong. The Dark is rebellious and angry, and doesn’t want to do homework.
But the Light isn’t very useful either. The Light wants to chase dreams and make the world a better place. You can’t do that in school. Being told to sit down, shut up, and do your homework (sometimes in as many words) is not good for the Light. The best you can get from Light is to say "Okay, fine, I guess I have to get a diploma in order to get out into the wide world, so wake me up when we're done with school." But that doesn’t add up. If the system doesn’t want you to be Dark and it doesn’t want you to be Light, what does it want?
It wants neither. It wants your spirit gone. Dead, or at least in a coma. They don’t acknowledge it, of course. Not many people could live with themselves if they woke up every day, looked in the mirror, and said “I’m going to crush hundreds of human spirits today!” They honestly think they’re helping you. But the Dark and the Light are what make life fun. Darkness may be ultimately self-destructive, but at least it feels good in the moment. Light, of course, is hard at the start but simply so much more fun in the end, because unlike the Darkness, where there’s really no point to anything you do except to do it, Light let’s you win at life. The void doesn't feel good at all. And whether they’ll admit it to themselves or not, the purpose of the public education system is to generate high test scores, and they aren’t about to let your spirit get in the way of that.
No, the public education system wants your spirit to be neither Light nor Dark, it wants your spirit to be a void, to be Nothing. Nothing, when your dreams are crushed and even your cynical, jaded Darkness has scurried off, when you become like a living machine, no longer truly enjoying even such simple pleasures as the taste of good food. I know that can’t possibly sound anything like good to the teachers and bureaucrats reading this, but ask yourself, while you obviously advise your students to avoid drugs, how often do you tell them to follow dreams? And I don't mean just saying the words, how often do you actually help them? And no, helping them graduate doesn't count, because the whole point of the ELF movement is that the education system is an obstacle getting in the way of life instead of a tutorial to prepare you for it, that it shouldn't be an obstacle, and that we intend to change it.
But what I have little doubt of is that almost every teacher reading this, at one time, did want their students to follow their dreams. They probably went into teaching with something like a hope of helping students realize them. And that’s my dream, too. A world with a school system that helps its students instead of squashing them like bugs.
-Ashen
There are two basic components to the human spirit. The Light, the good side, contains our hopes and our dreams, our empathy and our compassion. This side is what makes us want to become a Hollywood script writer, start our own business, or find the cure for cancer. It wants to accomplish things, to be important. It is ambition and love. This side of us is the force for progress in the world.
The Dark side of the spirit, on the other hand, contains our primal desires, our anger and our lust. It’s what makes us want to lash out at the people who hurt us, shut ourselves in our room for the rest of the day when life goes horribly wrong, or fill our days with cheap, hollow thrills. It wants to have fun right now and worry about the future when it gets here. It broods, it hates, and it lusts. This side of us is primarily a force for decay.
If my reputation has preceded me, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the public education system. Well, guess for me which side the public education system wants you to embrace. Given I don’t like the public education system at all, you’d probably think the Dark. Wrong. The Dark is rebellious and angry, and doesn’t want to do homework.
But the Light isn’t very useful either. The Light wants to chase dreams and make the world a better place. You can’t do that in school. Being told to sit down, shut up, and do your homework (sometimes in as many words) is not good for the Light. The best you can get from Light is to say "Okay, fine, I guess I have to get a diploma in order to get out into the wide world, so wake me up when we're done with school." But that doesn’t add up. If the system doesn’t want you to be Dark and it doesn’t want you to be Light, what does it want?
It wants neither. It wants your spirit gone. Dead, or at least in a coma. They don’t acknowledge it, of course. Not many people could live with themselves if they woke up every day, looked in the mirror, and said “I’m going to crush hundreds of human spirits today!” They honestly think they’re helping you. But the Dark and the Light are what make life fun. Darkness may be ultimately self-destructive, but at least it feels good in the moment. Light, of course, is hard at the start but simply so much more fun in the end, because unlike the Darkness, where there’s really no point to anything you do except to do it, Light let’s you win at life. The void doesn't feel good at all. And whether they’ll admit it to themselves or not, the purpose of the public education system is to generate high test scores, and they aren’t about to let your spirit get in the way of that.
No, the public education system wants your spirit to be neither Light nor Dark, it wants your spirit to be a void, to be Nothing. Nothing, when your dreams are crushed and even your cynical, jaded Darkness has scurried off, when you become like a living machine, no longer truly enjoying even such simple pleasures as the taste of good food. I know that can’t possibly sound anything like good to the teachers and bureaucrats reading this, but ask yourself, while you obviously advise your students to avoid drugs, how often do you tell them to follow dreams? And I don't mean just saying the words, how often do you actually help them? And no, helping them graduate doesn't count, because the whole point of the ELF movement is that the education system is an obstacle getting in the way of life instead of a tutorial to prepare you for it, that it shouldn't be an obstacle, and that we intend to change it.
But what I have little doubt of is that almost every teacher reading this, at one time, did want their students to follow their dreams. They probably went into teaching with something like a hope of helping students realize them. And that’s my dream, too. A world with a school system that helps its students instead of squashing them like bugs.
-Ashen
What is Dazibao?
During the cultural revolution in China, children at school would plaster the walls with papers called Dazibao, which would involve various writings on Communism and counter-revolutionaries, which were usually geared towards defaming unpopular teachers. That isn't what I'm after, here. The Dazibao put up on this blog is meant to be distributed throughout as many schools as possible in order to get people to join our cause. The basic concept of using short essays as a method of communication in schools inspired the name. That, and the fact that I finished Born Red not too long before ELF was started.
Each Dazibao is written so that it should be able to fit on a single sheet of paper in your average word processor (you may have to use a smaller font to get it to fit). Then, it should be e-mailed or printed and physically given to anyone and everyone who might be interested, including random students at school, particularly those who might be interested in actually reading the thing all the way through. Also, if you're involved in any online communities, and I mean any online communities at all, put a link up every now and again. Put links in your forum signature to the latest ELF Dazibao and you could triple our numbers overnight.
You, the people who believe in this system, are the people who are going to make it work. The first step in that direction is just getting the word out. So get it out. Get us some support.
-Ashen
Each Dazibao is written so that it should be able to fit on a single sheet of paper in your average word processor (you may have to use a smaller font to get it to fit). Then, it should be e-mailed or printed and physically given to anyone and everyone who might be interested, including random students at school, particularly those who might be interested in actually reading the thing all the way through. Also, if you're involved in any online communities, and I mean any online communities at all, put a link up every now and again. Put links in your forum signature to the latest ELF Dazibao and you could triple our numbers overnight.
You, the people who believe in this system, are the people who are going to make it work. The first step in that direction is just getting the word out. So get it out. Get us some support.
-Ashen
Dazibao 1 (Railing against the public school system)
Perhaps you’ve heard that the education system is broken, and if you haven’t I’m telling you now. It’s run by the government and given for free to anyone who cares to attend, the downside being that it’s awful. People are constantly complaining about how American High School students regularly score lower on standardized tests than Japanese students still in the womb, and what-not.
Now then, private schools generally do manage to produce higher test scores, but there is one small problem with them. Specifically, they are also awful. They produce results, certainly. They produce them with ruthless efficiency. But there’s a problem with this. They’re not producing anything useful, just test scores. Test scores, ultimately, do no good for anyone. They earn diplomas for the people who get them, but think bigger. What are those diplomas supposed to mean? They’re supposed to be a symbol of education, they’re supposed to be proof that you know something, but a quick glance around the classroom when your teacher asks “How many of you remember X thing you learned last year” proves that High School teaches, approximately, jack squat.
The egg heads, the kids who are obsessed with school? They usually don't learn anything either. Most of the time, they know it all in advance. If you're interested in Math, you're going to learn a lot more Math on your own than you will with a bunch of other students who could all care less. Of course, advanced classes exist for these kinds of people, advanced classes specially geared towards helping them learn things they are interested in. This is a good thing. We need more of this.
Another thing we could use some more of is hands on learning. It's more effective and it's more engaging for the students. It also has immediate application in reality. It's one thing to learn about X in class, and another thing altogether to learn about X and then use X to do Y. Suddenly, you feel like you've learned something useful. If national security ever depends on your ability to do Y, then America can breathe easy. It's a nice feeling, no matter how slim the odds are that the ability to do Y ever becomes relevent.
Fun fact: Math and Science, probably the hardest and most tedious classes in High School, are also the ones that require the most remedial courses in College. Due to their monotony, they communicate nothing. If the internet is anything to go by, English classes aren’t doing too well either, if u no wut I mean.
If we’re going to make an education system that works, we need to stop pretending that test scores mean something. We need to start focusing on producing real results because, though most people seem to treat school as something to fill up kids time so they don’t spend the morning kicking puppies, it’s actual purpose is to teach skills.
Mankind is a naturally creative, constructive being, and this creativity is actually more pronounced in youth, or at least it is whenever it isn’t being crushed by a cookie cutter “education” system that reduces both teachers and students value as human beings down to numbers stored in a server somewhere in Washington DC. A real education system would nurture this creativity instead of destroying it, and use students interests to teach them naturally.
-Ashen
Now then, private schools generally do manage to produce higher test scores, but there is one small problem with them. Specifically, they are also awful. They produce results, certainly. They produce them with ruthless efficiency. But there’s a problem with this. They’re not producing anything useful, just test scores. Test scores, ultimately, do no good for anyone. They earn diplomas for the people who get them, but think bigger. What are those diplomas supposed to mean? They’re supposed to be a symbol of education, they’re supposed to be proof that you know something, but a quick glance around the classroom when your teacher asks “How many of you remember X thing you learned last year” proves that High School teaches, approximately, jack squat.
The egg heads, the kids who are obsessed with school? They usually don't learn anything either. Most of the time, they know it all in advance. If you're interested in Math, you're going to learn a lot more Math on your own than you will with a bunch of other students who could all care less. Of course, advanced classes exist for these kinds of people, advanced classes specially geared towards helping them learn things they are interested in. This is a good thing. We need more of this.
Another thing we could use some more of is hands on learning. It's more effective and it's more engaging for the students. It also has immediate application in reality. It's one thing to learn about X in class, and another thing altogether to learn about X and then use X to do Y. Suddenly, you feel like you've learned something useful. If national security ever depends on your ability to do Y, then America can breathe easy. It's a nice feeling, no matter how slim the odds are that the ability to do Y ever becomes relevent.
Fun fact: Math and Science, probably the hardest and most tedious classes in High School, are also the ones that require the most remedial courses in College. Due to their monotony, they communicate nothing. If the internet is anything to go by, English classes aren’t doing too well either, if u no wut I mean.
If we’re going to make an education system that works, we need to stop pretending that test scores mean something. We need to start focusing on producing real results because, though most people seem to treat school as something to fill up kids time so they don’t spend the morning kicking puppies, it’s actual purpose is to teach skills.
Mankind is a naturally creative, constructive being, and this creativity is actually more pronounced in youth, or at least it is whenever it isn’t being crushed by a cookie cutter “education” system that reduces both teachers and students value as human beings down to numbers stored in a server somewhere in Washington DC. A real education system would nurture this creativity instead of destroying it, and use students interests to teach them naturally.
-Ashen
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