I share the sentiment. Even in a different country, our educational problems are much the same.

In my area (Psychology) I've had more than my share of so-called school psychologists and social workers whose job, apparently, is to do one or two tests (a piss poor "battery test" at best) and then go on to the teacher only to confirm what he already "knew": the kid's hopelessly stupid, so stamp a 6 on his grade card (the equivalent to a C I believe) and send dorko to the next grade, nevermind he being unable to read, we'll give him some shiny thing to keep him entertained.

High school is no better. A lot of teachers who only warm a seat, with equally indolent and desinterested students, who only wanna get the hell out of there to get drunk. And the few teachers who does give a damn are burdened not only with the task of teaching their classes, but with correcting the bad habits (like slackery and expecting automatic C, regardless of testing results) the students learn in the other classes (the rightly called "hidden curriculum", don't know if it's called that way in the US). I've seen software teachers at high schools having to take time out of their curriculum because their students doesn't possess the reading level necessary to obtain information out of their already simplified text books.

Even in college things are bad. Many, dare I say a lot of the students demands to be hand held through everything, their reading habits being almost non-existing, right along their abstract reasoning capabilities (maybe I just went to college with morons), and good luck if you're searching for an expelled student, they give you so many goddamned opportunities to pass, you have to be an imbecile in the former clinical use of the word to actually manage to get expelled.

To me, this 20/20 special says a lot about education, both in the US as well as here in Mexico: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw

I don't embed it because it's quite long (almost 50 mins.)

[Edit] I've been watching some youtuve vids related to the one above, and got one of those moments in which you actually have to remember to breathe. Could someone tell me if this video is for real? And if it is, could you recommend some remedy to regain the little hope I had for humanity's future?

[Edit 2] Misspells

I hated school. And all the new reforms that have come in since I left only seem to make it worse in my eyes. The focus of these new reforms is capitalism, to get kids into jobs or into business. All the emphasis on academia, or learning for the sake of expanding your mind has gone, its a purely economic system. I mean, I didn't enjoy school much, but very few people ever do even if its actually a good education. It was more about academia five years ago when I left high school, but even then there were some subjects which forced this pseudo-capitalist environment. I did a GCSE in Food Technology, which in the first few years of high school was just about learning to cook. At GCSE it was about making and selling a product, and this enfuriated me. I've never wanted to be a cog in the economic machinery but it seems that this is the point of our school system here in the UK. Expanding your mind, and learning to think for yourself are not qualities the government wants to endorse. I'm just glad that traditional academia lives on at the University level.

Jacob,

try going to high school in the states.  i took "political science" as a senior (inverted commas definitely ironic) and one of our exam questions was, i shit you not, "Which is the best form of government?"

a. monarchy

b. democracy

c. dictatorship

guess what the "correct" answer was?  myself and a buddy of mine actually marked "dictatorship" just to fuck with the teacher.  i wrote "of the proletariat" next to it.  she was actually cool enough not to count it wrong but i think she didn't have a clue what "proletariat" meant.

still, though...a fucking public school exam...

i'm afraid it was.  still, in all fairness to the state of kentucky, it wasn't a state standardized test or anything.  it was a half-assed bullshit test made up by a mediocre teacher in one of the lowest rated school districts in the united states.  still, how often do you see electives on marxism being offered in public high schools in america (or the UK)?  or, gasp, as part of the required curriculum?  marx usually gets a paragraph in the history books, at best, with a trite cliche from the teacher about how "communism is beautiful in theory, but in practice it never works."

never mind that there are as many stripes of marxism as any other system of economics or sociology or philosophy and that, in reality, marx's path to a communist society has never really been given a try.  i go into that in detail in the little essay i wrote in response to the "communist" question on the unofficial FAQ blog.

Well, lets change it. Honestly how hard can it be to make a website full of media, videos, text, power point, etc. that taught 7 - 12? 

I agree with some points being said in this topic but I disagree with others. The school system in the US does suck but it's not because of grading students or giving them homework. Anyway, my two cents:

- Dumbass teachers need to go. Every school has them. My high school was one of the top 10 in the state (Georgia, so maybe that's not saying much ) and even we had a couple of morons teaching. Unfortunately schools are currently doing the exact opposite of this. Due to a teacher shortage schools are now employing unlicensed teachers as long as they're working toward getting their license. This is one reason why college in the US is so much better than the public school system: in college your professors actually know what they're talking about. In some cases they're even the person who wrote your textbook. Compare that to high school where, say, your economics teacher thinks that NATO stands for "North American Trade Organization" (true story).

- Bullshit busy work needs to go. This seriously pissed me off when I was in K-12. The work I'm talking about isn't having to do 30 math problems for homework, that actually teaches you something, but rather having to make a poster about some barely related topic to what you're talking about in class, or having to make some other kind of art project that teaches you next to nothing but still manages to eat up a week of your time.

- Stop wasting our time. You know what the great thing about college is? Its a hell of a lot more effective and efficient at teaching you material. Most classes only meet two days a week for 75 minutes and yet you still end up learning way more than you did in high school going to class five days a week for 50-90 minutes. Why? Because in college you're given everything you need to know without any bullshit. Whereas in high school it takes 4-10 days finally move on to a new subject in college it takes half a class period.

Saying that getting rid of grades would improve students' academic performance is like saying that industry thrives under communism. Yeah, in a perfect world where people try their hardest no matter what it would work. But this is the real world where most people need incentives to make any effort. The A, B, C, D, F grading scheme is meant to motivate students to learn the material. It also gives a decent indication of how you performed academically in a given class. Its probably safe to say that the student who got an "F" didn't learn as much as the student who got an "A". Hence the reason that colleges don't look at "pass/fail" courses on your transcript.

Homework is handed out in schools because most students need to practice to learn the material and most of them wouldn't be willing to do so unless they're forced to.

As for dropping subjects that students aren't interested in that's pretty stupid. What you learn in K-12 are the basics and they're necessary to know if you want to succeed in college. But even if you're not interested in college or don't see the point in learning world history when you know you wont ever use the knowledge its still important to learn the curriculum. I remember back when I took physics in high school and had to write a scientific paper that I couldn't stop thinking about how bullshit it was that I had to write that. "I'm never going to be a scientist, I'm going to be a software programmer. This is wasting my time" I thought. I took chemistry and slacked off since I never saw myself doing anything with it. Move ahead three years and now I'm a neuroscience major. Point being: your interests and goals change and as a result its important that you have all your bases covered so that you're not completely screwed if you decide you want to do something else with your life than what you originally planned.

Just find out what is required by law and explain it well. I don't think its the curriculum thats bad as much as the teachers don't explain it well and schools are a complete waste of time and mental energy for most kids. I am around christian homeschoolers that are teaching themselves calculus with text books, work books and videos. These kids are 16 & 17. Thier older siblings followed the same courses and got top scores on the SATs. SO really take the christian homeschooler curriculum and remove the "God made it" stuff.

That's exactly the main problem with our current system. A lot of the problems with our education system is just this: "smart" people are portrayed as "Revenge of the Nerds." Jocks get about six movies a year (high school sports / cheerleading competition seems to be a big plot point). Geeks and generally well-educated people get.... well, almost none. About the only role for a smart person in most high-school movies is to play foil to the jock, or to be the disaffected loner who is contemptuous of education.

Society actively encourages dumbasses, and works to destroy any desire to learn at an early age. Anyone who's seen a two-year-old in action knows we start off naturally curious. Then we slowly get that beat out of us.

Fix this, and we fix a lot of the problems with our current system. Don't fix this, and we fix nothing at all, we just shift the problem to a new framework.

as a pretty proficient musician i wholeheartedly agree with kicking compulsory music classes out of public schools.  i probably would've gotten into music at a much younger age, and thus be much better than i am now with maybe even a grasp of theory (i can't read sheet music) had it not been for public school music classes.  they made me HATE music.  music teachers in public schools are notoriously bad.  mine were all dumbasses and fucking wacko, from k-12 without exception.  ask any public schoolchild what their favorite subject is.  i will give you 20 bucks if they say music.  NONE of the kids i went to school with would ever have said that.

We didn't have to take music in High School - in Kindergarten the regular teacher taught it. 1st and 2nd grade music teacher was funny and made it interesting. The one later in elementary was a royal bitch - I got kicked out of my school in 3rd grade (long story) - the one from 4th through 6th was nice but a bit wacko. Jr High music teacher was an asshole and boring - everyone thought he was gay, too.

i have a couple things to say to that:

1.  any kid who is talented in music is going to come to it of his own accord, regardless of circumstances.  buddy guy, the great chicago blues guitarist, as a poor child in mississippi stretched a rubber band against the wall and learned how to make music with it.  in europe, conservatories existed for children who displayed talent to learn the theory, but it was never necessary.  the wealth of ballads and folk songs collected by people like child, john jacob niles, and the lomaxes show that the common folk are just as profound in their musical expressions as chopin ever was.

2.  if a kid doesn't have a predisposition to make music, he probably never will, and he certainly won't get it from compulsory education.  and the majority of children don't.  why force it down their throats?  you can't train a musician like you can a fucking electrician.

3.  the fucking banality of modern pop music has nothing to do with musical education at all.  it has to do with the vast changes that have taken place in the music industry, an oversaturated public, and overexposed artists.  kids like britney spears and justin timberlake only know they want to be famous.  they have no idea what they want to express as artists, or even how to be artists.  fifty or even thirty years ago, a pop artist like elvis or sinatra or jerry lee lewis appeared on the scene with an established mode of expression and a fully formed oeuvre.  they developed it by "paying dues."  the pop industry doesn't want that anymore.  they want weak-minded mediocre kids who can be easily molded.  and honestly, even modern fucking jazz (which in my opinion, as a huge fan of billie holiday, eddie lang, lonnie johnson, cliff edwards, ma rainey, roy smeck, satchmo, etc., fucking sucks ASS) is little different.  modern blues is also feeling the pressure (look at johnnie lang or keb mo for christ's sake).  and bluegrass as well (fuck "oh brother" in the fucking neck and allison krauss is a 75% pop country).

I agree Hamby .... Music if taught in a fun way is also a "meditative" stress reliever and out let. So many people shun learning simple piano, guitar etc because of the lousy way it is taught. Pushing the "reading music" at the very start is not encouraging. I've been told many times that I am the "best music teacher ever!"

  So many think they can't play even basic music, that they are tone deaf etc , and that's really a shame ...... me and "My Baby Grand"! ..... and "I still got my guitar" ..... healthy I'd say ..... of course an obsession it can also be ...... was for me .....

i have no doubt about your competence.  while i have no academic credentials, i have been actively performing for 7 years, beginning in the bar scene.  i now live in slovakia and tour with a country band.  we're fairly well known here and make decent money, though i still have my job teaching english.  i play guitar and harmonica very proficiently, particularly early rural american styles, blues, country, rockabilly, jazz, folk, and bluegrass.  i can also play banjo, autoharp, bass, dulcimer, and make a decent sound on any stringed instrument.  i sing ok and do very little  songwriting, but i consider myself more an instrumentalist.  which is ironic, since i'm the band's frontman.

i don't put much stock in musical academia.  i've known some music majors who were pretty piss-poor musicians, though i'm certainly not implying you're one.

i agree music is good for every child.  i tell my wife all the time that when she becomes pregnant, i want her around music of my choosing constantly.  and if you're talking about music appreciation being compulsory, i'm open.  i don't know if the taxpayers should be made to pay for daily classes in it, but hell, why not play mozart while the kids are coloring?

but notice my wording: "if a child is predisposed to making music," not "liking music."  i have never heard of a great musician who chalked his or her ability up to compulsory education in music theory (which is what they attempt to teach in public school).  in fact, as i said, it stunted my musical growth.  my friend who was a music major in college even was predisposed to making music (he and i butted heads all the time), and after four years he was a decent drummer and bassist, a mediocre pianist, a horrible singer, but fantastic at being a music snob, i.e., parroting his professors' tastes (that were probably also parroted).

i am also surrounded by musicians all the time, and was from birth (my father and two of my uncles were in a local country band for many years).  i'm not impressed by the indie scene.  everything is about image now.  punk comes out, punk gets domesticated.  metal comes out, metal gets domesticated.  grunge comes out, grunge gets domesticated.  it's as inevitable as time. 

but do you think teaching kids music will get rid of all that?  it may do the kids a lot of good but i predict the pop scene will always be what is: about commodities, not music.  kids might grow up to be musicians or they might not, but ALL kids will grow up to be consumers.  but the truly great musicians--the charlie christians, the mose allisons, the john lee hookers, the thelonius monks, the john faheys, the van morrisons--they will come out of the woodwork regardless of what is in the schools.  i truly think it must be due to some mental anomaly they're born with.  at best, compulsory musical education can only help the majority of society to appreciate them.

yes, but why didn't they "stick with it"?  because they had no affinity for it.  i mean, ask everybody on the street if they'd like to be able to play a musical instrument and it's likely everyone will say yes.  but i find it very hard to believe the world will lose another ray charles because there's no training in schools.

in fact, that reminds me of an anecdote i heard johnny cash tell.  when he was a child his mother sent him to a singing coach.  she heard him sing and said, "go home.  don't ever let anyone tell you how to sing."  that was it.  his formal musical education ended there.  now most people don't consider johnny cash a good singer, but his voice held the world's attention in a way even caruso never could.

allow me to just clarify my position.  i am all for introducing children to music at the youngest age possible.  but i think it is a waste of taxpayer money to have compulsory formal musical education (or what passes for it) in public schools.  maybe state subsidized training programs for underpriveleged children who are interested is a good idea, but not universal and compulsory music theory.  maybe compulsory music appreciation or music history in schools, at least in elementary schools, with an emphasis on cultural and historical context rather than theory, would be a good idea, and would bring out the kids who really want to play it.

i have never missed being able to talk in theoretical jargon.  the words take longer to say than sliding up a fret or hitting a key, and if any musician shows me rather than tells me it is much more helpful and i understand what he means immediately.  the only time i have ever missed being able to read and write sheet music is when i have a strings or horn arrangement in my head but i cannot really communicate it.  then again, i havent made it big enough yet to work with an orchestra so no big deal.  if i ever do i will probably do what tom waits does: go in my bathroom with a tape recorder and beatbox and hum it out.  maybe even add that to the track too.

well, in all fairness, you do not know what i make playing music so you cannot say you make twice as much.  i have played everything except classical, latin, and hip-hop, and i have never run up against a problem arranging or performing a song, whether it be an original or a cover, that i have not been able to get past in 5 or 10 minutes.  i have played with bands in live gigs before where i have had a couple hours of practice, if any, beforehand and have never had any problems.  knowing theory might very well bring me new ideas, but not knowing theory has never handicapped me.  and making money is not based of how well you know theory anyway.  almost all of the artists i have been referencing since we started this discussion had no grasp of theory and many of them made milions and worked consistently for decades. 

agreed.  i realize i've gotten very far from my initial point.  my point is, musical theory is forced upon public school students for many years without discretion.  this is a waste of taxpayers' money, as the vast majority of public school children have no interest in musical theory nor do they retain it.  make it available, by all means, even through state subsidies as i said, but don't make it compulsory.  every public elementary, middle, and high school in every county and city does not need a music teacher.  that is my point.

Aren't all music teachers people that failed at making any money with music, so then they can only earn a living teaching.

High school coaches are all failed athletes.

Funding healthy happy kids would definitely include all the major arts, sports, and recreation to some degree.  Video games are computer science, and art etc.

Geezzz, what's the war budget this crazy day. Something is FUCKED UP, ass backwards!

   What is money, a game ? The rich (gamers) are ripping the rest off, plain and simple ..... eat them !  Fuck this corrupt game of brainwash .....

I'm 17 and currently a Junior in a high school of the U.S. Education system. It most righteously sucks.

My school, I believe is especially bad. It's one of those "numbers schools"--a place more concerned with its statistics on paper than actual services rendered to its taxpayer's children.

We spend excruciating amounts of time doing standardized test prep, both state and national. I failed an English course freshman year, and was able to make it up in 3 days of a $225 summer school course. I learned little in that time, but more than I learned in the failed semester of the class.The system is basically to make it extremely easy to pass classes if you fail them, and spend our time getting ready for the money makers, the standardized tests. Looks good on paper: amazing test scores and record numbers of graduates, never mind the fact some can't even speak fluent English.

And free speech is definitely encouraged, as long as you freely speak of material approved by the administration.

If anyone has questions about the school system from an inside view I'll do my best to answer, although  it will be based on an un-average, corrupted system. If not, that's cool, I've got mountains of homework they expect me to finish.

I forgot to mention this.

Where the fuck was my 'build cool shit wth Legos' class? My 'talk about shit with classmates and learn to make smalltalk and be social' class? My 'shout your opinions and get behind them' class? My 'this is how you fuck someone so they shriek in tongues to their deity' class? My 'this is how you know you have a good job' class? My 'this is how you balance your chequebook' class?

Oh man are you asking for it with that one. The answer is "no". A lot of people really like teaching music.

You're just looking for a fight at this point.

I agree learning needs to be made more fun. But the only way there should be publically funded music education is if it can be proven it provides a net economic benefit to society and the taxpayers funding it. I think it's great if parents have the money to teach their children music. But I don't think overall music education pays for itself. All I see is a lot of unemployed musicians instead of people trained to take jobs in demand. It's another one sided relationship where one group is the givers(taxpayers) and the other is takers(musicians trained in public schools).

Probably not. But saying "my high school sucked" and "music teachers suck" are different things.

The funny thing is ... my mother was a gym teacher before she became a musician. Not even joking. So I had a good laugh at your original post, because there would be no way for you to even come up with a better "your mom" joke.