I grew up and went to school in Russia, but spent my last three grades in the US. Both have their pros and cons, but some cons of the US system were very apparent.
1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all.
2. The breaks between classes were only 3-5 minutes long in the US. Whereas in Russia they were 10-15 minutes. You can't socialize during 3-5 minutes you have to run to another class. Yes, you are less likely to "get in trouble", but getting in trouble is part of socializing.
3. Not really a problem with the schooling system, but the above two combined with living in the suburbs produces a great problem. You know you won't see any of the students for the rest of the day, unless your mom drives you to the mall or something. Socializing time is very brief during the school day, but really, that's all you've got...
Needless to say I hated going to the US school tremendously. Color me cynical, but I am somewhat surprised that there are not many more school shooting than there are now. Oh and I graduated more than a decade ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I doubt it.
I'm sure this varies between states but at my school in New York we had nine periods per day rather than nine classes. One of these was taken up by lunch and then science classes would often take up two adjacent periods. Most people also had at least one study hall period which could be used for homework or socializing. In the end, most people were taking six classes or so. You also had the option to take classes at the local college or do independent studies for AP courses that weren't offered if you weren't challenged enough. Nine subjects at once is certainly pushing it for most students but that definitely isn't universal in the US.
For point 3, it really depends on the suburb. I grew up in a nice suburb and after school was always about getting together with other kids in the area. We could ride bikes all around the neighborhood, go to local parks, and go to a movie on the weekends.
> Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all.
This is by far the worst thing in any school system... even in Germany, with 6 different subjects every day, it's hard because you shift your entire focus every 45min. Until you're in the correct focus, it needs ten minutes - and suddenly, a third of the lesson time is gone.
Best would be three or four 90-minute blocks to avoid the constant mind-shifting, separated by 15-min (or at midday 30-45min) breaks in order to relax, eat and socialize.
As a counterpoint, I have a hard time keeping my focus for more than 45 min. 90-min classes, which I've been having for a good five years now, can be killers.
This is even more true when I'm working on my own: it requires a substantial amount of effort to make it through one 25 min. pomodoro period.
Having been a teacher (for one miserable year) I have too much to say about this. I'll try to make a few points and not rant.
There is a reason that classes are like this. In my experience it is because if you try to have more participation in a large classroom it devolves quickly into chaos. Which you you little angels remember making sport of the substitute teacher? Putting 30 teenagers in a room with one adult and expecting them to sit for an hour every day and "learn" is laughably insane. Teachers that make it work do so by becoming wardens of their own little compound. And this is after all effective tools for discipline have been taken away from teachers and most parents and the slimy administrative politicians siding against you. Maybe if you could beat a little psychopath once in a while you would not have to put 99% of your classroom effort to shushing and threatening and other emotionally abusive crowd control techniques.
Ever heard of Sudbury schools? These are schools were they don't make the kids do anything. There are no classes, standards or curriculum. Testing shows no significant academic difference with "normal" schools. Think about that: the effect of modern education is indistinguishable from a placebo.
Education is fucked from the ground up. It's a stupid idea poorly executed. I say let's just be honest and call school what it is: baby-sitting. At least then we can stop being so cruel to our children and let them relax and enjoy themselves.
Two years ago, I spent eight weeks teaching high school students about the legal system through a juvenile diversionary program called Street Law. One would think that this would be prime time for what you described, what with me being essentially a substitute teacher for a classroom of only students who had all at some point been charged with a crime. It was not.
In fact, the exact opposite occurred. Students engaged in thoughtful discussion on a wide range of complex issues on which reasonable minds frequently disagree. We debated constitutional rights and justice reform. We shared personal experiences with racism and bigotry. We searched for ideas to stop it.
One or two times, I think I even saw someone consider changing their mind.
You probably think I am making this up. I am not. It happened, and I think it happened because I didn't treat them like children. I spoke to them with honesty. I asked them what they thought, and it took them by surprise. Perhaps if we stopped treating them like small children, they will stop acting that way.
let's just be honest and call school what it is: baby-sitting
Some of the best teaching being done today in public schools in the U.S. is in what is commonly called "alternative education." These are special facilities for "problem" students. The expectations are low. The politicians and parents are overjoyed the students bothered to show up. It is very similar in environment to Sudbury schools.
One of the many topics I didn't address in my mini-rant is how, when you stop brutally regimenting education, real learning can occur. It's too bad we don't allow students that haven't committed crimes this same opportunity.
> [1] Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting.
> [2] High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes.
> [3] You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long.
People wonder why high school aged students are unruly, unpleasant, and filled with deep negative emotions (anger, disdain, need-to-rebel). I look at this list (especially [2] and the lack of autonomy that follows) and the reason seems really clear. The basic model seems broken.
I'm on the board of a small private high-school and I'm going to forward this to the headmaster but ...
Sitting all day [1] passively listening to a droning professor [2] and feeling like a nuisance [3] if you don't grasp the material, pay attention and avoid causing disruptions [3] is an important skill for college survival. If we change the curriculum to engage the students more (which I tend to believe will increase their retention of the materials), will we make them less capable of successfully performing 1, 2 & 3 in their college classes?
Was your college experience a lot like high school in that regard? I don't feel like mine was. My schedule never involved 6+ hours of sitting without breaks. Even in semesters with a heavy workload, some of the classes were always labs or very interactive, not just lectures. If classes were back-to-back, they were still often in different buildings, so there was a bit of an exercise break between lectures as opposed to walking down the hall in the same HS building. Virtually all professors were open to questions before/after class or had office hours or a TA with office hours -- asking questions was not seen as being a nuisance. Laptops/phones were allowed in nearly all lectures, which breaks up the monotony of sitting passively even during a lecture.
It was ... though I didn't notice as much in my EE/CS classes (perhaps because I was so interested in the content?).
On the other hand, my Chem 12 section had about 400 students in it - there was no chance for the professor to engage us during the lectures. This was pretty common in the classes that were BDRs (Basic Degree Requirements). Econ 2/4 (Micro/Macro), Math 160/161 (Differential/Integral Calculus) and Film 190 and most of the beginning humanities/social sciences were all taught this way.
In theory, recitations were smaller groups where you could be more engaged with the TA (generally a grad student) but half of them spoke such broken English they couldn't be understood (I had a higher-level math TA that described two-thirds as "three under two" - when you're taking notes at the pace required, your pen naturally writes three-halves for a few weeks).
But how many hours a week did you spend in lectures? Certainly not the 30 hours a week that many high school students spend, and you almost certainly didn't take 8 classes at a time.
Furthermore, in college you can get up and go the bathroom or get something to drink without asking permission--you can even leave if you want. Even if you don't always exercise this freedom, just the knowledge that you can is a drastic change.
[1] My college schedule was considerably more broken up, including a 10 minute break in classes that were longer than 90 minutes. In fact, I almost never had a block of classes longer than 3 hours which didn't have at least an hour before more classes happened. During the time I wasn't in class, I was unsupervised and able to walk around a large campus, stop by the gym, go off campus, etc. All of these serve to considerably break up the day versus high school, where I had something like 4.5 hours of classes a day, in 90 minute blocks, with two 10 minute breaks and a 30 minute break which was my only chance to eat food all day.
[2] Even sitting in the classroom, I was allowed considerably more freedom in college. I was (generally) allowed to eat, use my laptop as I saw fit. Further, my college classes were generally more interactive, with strong group/class discussion components, exploring examples in class, etc. The whole process was much more dynamic than my high school classes were on average.
[3] It's certainly true that you shouldn't bother other people during the lecture (such as making loud noises), but my experience in college was again that it was actually easier to ask questions when I didn't understand, either within class or during office hours/tutoring times. Partly, this is just a maturity thing: you get more used to asking people for help as you get older and place more value on your understanding of the topic.
I think the dual role of teenager babysitter and education facility negatively impacts the school's role in education at times - such as when they keep students more controlled and have more instruction time than is likely necessary so that way teenagers aren't just free all the time to wander around town. Colleges (and the experiences of the students) benefit from only having to do one of the two things.
I agree ... in college you don't have to do 1, 2 or 3. The ability to do them is however a necessary skill (e.g. "I was (generally) allowed to eat, use my laptop as I saw fit." - but if you browsed the Internet during the entire class period, you'd have completely missed the presented materials).
So college classes don't force students into these behaviors like high-school classes often do, but the ability to self-regulate those same behaviors are needed for success.
Sorry for the late reply, but I think the difference of being able to regulate my level of attention, ie, browsing the internet when the lecture is particularly dragging, being able to look things up when I get confused, etc actually make it easier to focus on the large majority of the lecture. By being able to take quick mental breaks, and not having to expend full focus when, eg, the professor is belaboring the part of it that I already know because other students did bad on the quiz, for instance, actually makes it easier to stay fresh and focused during the other parts of the class.
Self-regulation, even if you end up doing mostly the same thing, is substantially different from being forced to do it continually, at least in terms of the mental strain it places on me. I always got much more out of long lectures where my attention sort of wandered in and out, and was punctuated by a mixture of doodles, thinking about other things, and sharply focusing on the key points and arguments. Let's not pretend every word out of a professor's mouth is golden, and the students are going to be seriously disadvantaged if they miss a few here and there.
Part of the disservice we're doing to high school students is that we're not actually teaching them to self-regulate in a useful way: we're teaching them to do all or nothing.
The reasoning goes on. Colleges make people endure boredom & obedience in preparation for future jobs.
People should at least be allowed to decide whether some school should waste years of their lives for these (depressing) benefits. Failing that, this reasoning should be made crystal clear.
So your plan for preparing students to endure these things successfully in college is just to inflict the same things on them, with no preparation, no training, no discussion, no allowance for failure?
If true that's as insane as most of the rest of the education system, but it seems to be more likely to be a very weak justification for continuing with the status quo.
It's interesting, because I hear this kind of line all the time, that we need to e.g. "learn to do work we don't like because sometimes in (high-school, college, work) we have required work that is essential, regardless of whether we like it or not."
For some reason it never occurred to me to ask the obvious question "why would we think that just making them do it is the right training for this?". It just seems intellectually lazy to say that "you have to learn" to do something, but the 'learning' is just the demand that you do it. It may be optimal for some things, but it seems very unlikely to be the correct, final answer.
Why shouldn't college education be more engaging as well?
I'm teaching at the Interaction Design programme in Malmö, which is very much centered around project based learning and because of that inherently avoids the problems mentioned to a large degree. Although I admit that interaction design lends itself better to such an approach than some other subjects.
It should be!!! I believe people like you are the future of higher education - project-based learning where the students can actually see how the skills they're practicing might be used in the real world.
There are, unfortunately, too few of you but at least you're not alone. One of my favorite classes involved solving a problem encountered at a real business. It was free for the business - all they had to do was supply the problem. The students submitted suggested solutions and the business was free to implement the solution or (if they were being generous) tell the students why the solution wasn't used (and if they could, what the chosen solution was).
Are you suggesting that college education is so poorly structured that it is important to give students a few years of practice, instead of improving the learning environment so they can learn more? Maybe the kids wouldn't even need college lecture of they learned the 400person Chem/Calc/whatever 1 class material the first time the saw it in high school.
Getting teenagers to learn more, engage, take charge of their learning will make the less successful at college?
Maybe college needs to change as well. But also, in college you can chose you class and institution. High school you have like 1 elective, you can't really change schools. If your college was like a bad high school, you need to go elsewhere.
I'd like to step back from this from a moment and get a little more abstract and ask if this idea of shadowing applies to software products (or any other business, really).
Has anyone really sat down and shadowed one of their users for a whole day? I know small usability studies are pretty common. You get someone in a room, ask them to perform some tasks, see what they do. But if you have an app that people are going to spend their whole day in, e.g. email, office suite, productivity, does anyone really sit down and shadow a user for a day?
There might be things you don't notice if you only do it for an hour or two, or is it just not the same when the user isn't required by an authority to be present?
One of my first jobs was writing software for call centers. The agents did things like CS, take payments, etc... I frequently went onto the calling floor and sat with the agents to see how they worked. Their bonuses were in part based on speed, so any software I wanted them to use had to not slow them down. They also had to deal with multiple separate programs, so additional software had to get out of the way when not being used.
It was a great first job, and I learned a lot about writing usable software.
I think quicken did this very early in their history. They would look over a new customers shoulder to fine any parts of the product that were hard to use.
> In addition, there was a good deal of sarcasm and snark
> directed at students
> ...
> I realize that sarcasm, impatience, and annoyance are a
> way of creating a barrier between me and them.
From a european point of view that is something the entire us-american culture embraces and grapples with vigorously, to the detriment of interactions among themselves and with other cultures. It would make sense that this is started and reinforced in school already.
Pink Floyd would disagree that it's a particularly US centric problem...?
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
I can't really imagine that French or Italian schools are much better - but I may very well be wrong. And it'snbeen a few years since Pink Floyd was in school, obviously...
I think we're very stand-offish people. We tend to not engage in conversation with strangers. I think sarcasm is sort of a way to probe another person for where you stand with them, given a functionally retarded mindset towards personal interactions. You can say something, and if the person laughs, you know they are net-positive towards you, and if they don't, you can apologize and claim you were just being sarcastic.
>I think we're very stand-offish people. We tend to not engage in conversation with strangers.
I have never heard that from anyone. What culture are you comparing the US to? I've heard the exact opposite from nearly every non-American I've ever discussed this with. If anything they think Americans are too friendly/chatty.
There's no need to ad "us" to "american". While the Americas can refer to the entire new world, the term "American" is wholly unambiguous. When you say American everyone in the world knows to whom you are referring, including all the other people of the Americas.
If anyone refers to Americans, in English, without qualification, the understanding is that they are referring to Citizens of the U.S.
Natural language is inherently ambiguous and you will always find edge cases, but the definition of "American" is as close to completely unambiguous as you're going to get.
I also take issue with your assertion that Latin Americans often refer to themselves as "American". I've never met a Latin American who said they were from "America" or were "American". Unless it was someone on an internet forum with a specific agenda.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I have quite a bit of contact with people from Mexico and Peru, and I've never heard it from them. I'm going to need sources before I believe that term is in common use.
Regardless usage dictates the rules of language and in English the common term is "American" not "Usamerican", or "USian".
Of course Natural language is ambiguous. It's also evolving and reflects attitudes, values and culture. It seems "American" == "US Citizen" has solidified, although the discussion was still going 60 years ago( http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/486658?uid=3739920&uid...
).
Our experiences talking to Latin Americans probably differ because of language. I have lived in Latin America, as a native Spanish speaker (which may have made it easier for Latin Americans to communicate their musings on identity, US-centrism and language).
The USA uses the name of the continent to name its citizens (As if French said ... "We're Europeans, and the Germans? Bah, they are only German, they can't really call themselves Europeans ... everybody knows that real Europeans are French). In any case, it seems your use of the word is the accepted meaning in English, so I stand corrected. But for your information, this is not the case in Spanish.
I agree with you that it may be different when speaking in Spanish. If I were speaking in another language in another country, I would use whatever the local word for American is.
>The USA uses the name of the continent to name its citizens (As if French said ... "We're Europeans, and the Germans? Bah, they are only German, they can't really call themselves Europeans ... everybody knows that real Europeans are French).
That analogy only holds if France had been called "The United States of Europe" for the last 200 years. Americans are only called Americans because the U.S.A. is the only country with America in the name. We didn't start calling ourselves Americans because we think that we are the only people on the continent. The name of our country happens to coincide with the name of the continent (this isn't even really the case in American English because we almost always qualify North or South America).
Based on the name of our country, the natural demonym is American. Germany is called "The Federal Republic of Germany", France is "The French Republic", and Mexico is "The United Mexican States", but we call them just German, French, and Mexican.
As an aside, I've never wanted to refer to myself as American in the sense that I'm from the new world or even as North American. When would this ever be appropriate? If someone asks were I'm from, "The New World" is so vague as to be mostly useless. The cultures, climate, and geography of the Americas are so varied--what possible meaning could, "I'm from the Americas" convey? It would imply some sense of unity that simply doesn't exist--there just isn't a New World identity, so why use a word in a way that implies there is one.
Do people from Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, etc identify themselves as "Americans", though? My meager experience has been that most people identify with the name of their country, not continent.
The only time I've ever heard someone from South America identify themselves as "American", instead of Peruvian, Brazilian etc..., is on the internet when trying to make a point. Out of the numerous South Americans I've met offline, I've never heard one identify themselves as American.
South American's do sometimes take offense at calling their continent, "South America". They insist that the whole thing is one large continent called "America", yet they have no problem whatsoever referring to "North America" separately.
Yo soy americano, but would not call myself American. There is no confusion, the two words mean two different concepts, even if they share the same root.
Formal translations of "American" would map to "estadounidense" o "norteamericano". Informal ones would just say "gringo", which is a bit fuzzy and (depending on context) may include Canadians - or any Caucasian looking English speaker - as well.
Many American adults seem to forget just how abusive and degrading the entire school system is, especially during high school. The people who are attending high school are not really "children" in the sense of not having an informed worldview and autonomous identity and desires; they have informed preferences, can do risk assessment, and cost-benefit analysis.
But these same people are forced to attend school the entire day, every day, where they are met with mostly indifference from teachers and bullying by peers. The system allows you little choice of subjects, no choice of classmates, and often no possibility of taking easier/harder versions of the classes. In college, you can choose to not attend a lecture; not in high school. In college, you can choose your courses (mostly); not in high school.
"Babysitting" is a nice word for it, but for me, it felt like a prison and I would not wish it on anyone.
Whats really amazing is that this experiment would have been a first of its kind in nearly 100s of years.
I personally think that our class based education systems are languishing at some 100 year based minima right now w.r.t effectiveness.
Present systems don't take into account:
1. Most subjects require different modalities of learning. Teaching computer science via lecture format? seriously?
2. Students have different economic situations which usually means real demands on their time and attention. The system HAS TO cater to this to be more effective.
3. As the environment changes the teaching methodology has to change. Right now phones and tablets really inhibit concentration. So something to counter this would be effective for all other classes.
4. Schools primary function is a safe place to keep your kids. Their inability to accept this makes them stuff the day with classes.
Doing any unfamiliar job all day is exhausting. There are plenty of other professions where sitting all day is the norm (like programming). Of course, most have the option of taking a stretch when they want to, but the only time I have seen people do this on a regular basis was for medical reasons.
In high school, I had an administrator (the dean of students) enroll in one of my classes for a year.
Just because everyone sits all day doesn't mean everyone should. And working at a software company, I get up to stretch all the time because I just can't concentrate anymore. School kids do not have this option most of the time.
1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all.
2. The breaks between classes were only 3-5 minutes long in the US. Whereas in Russia they were 10-15 minutes. You can't socialize during 3-5 minutes you have to run to another class. Yes, you are less likely to "get in trouble", but getting in trouble is part of socializing.
3. Not really a problem with the schooling system, but the above two combined with living in the suburbs produces a great problem. You know you won't see any of the students for the rest of the day, unless your mom drives you to the mall or something. Socializing time is very brief during the school day, but really, that's all you've got...
Needless to say I hated going to the US school tremendously. Color me cynical, but I am somewhat surprised that there are not many more school shooting than there are now. Oh and I graduated more than a decade ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I doubt it.