American education

Piccolo · Jul 11, 2020

Do you agree with the stereotype that Americans are poorly educated, even if.....that American history certainly has distinguished itself; in this or any other field? Did not Meiji modernisers consider using an American (or at least New England) mode of education? (Not sure if....)

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HL Mencken on American wits:

“That Americans, in the mass, have anything properly describable as keen wits is surely far from self-evident. On the contrary, it seems likely that, if anything, they lie below the civilized norm.”

On higher education:

Consider him in his highest incarnation: the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and, in large part, untrue. His whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarices of his university trustees, i.e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank-directors and politicians. The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons.

H. L. Mencken

sharik · Jul 11, 2020

education is a indoctrination save where students are taught to think for themselves and self-educate further.

Volga · Jul 11, 2020

Piccolo said:
Do you agree with the stereotype that Americans are poorly educated, even if.....that American history certainly has distinguished itself; in this or any other field? Did not Meiji modernisers consider using an American (or at least New England) mode of education? (Not sure if....)

======

HL Mencken on American wits:

“That Americans, in the mass, have anything properly describable as keen wits is surely far from self-evident. On the contrary, it seems likely that, if anything, they lie below the civilized norm.”

On higher education:

Consider him in his highest incarnation: the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and, in large part, untrue. His whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarices of his university trustees, i.e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank-directors and politicians. The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons.

H. L. Mencken

American education is very specialized. As Dr. Watson described Sherlock Holmes - "His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge".

Abraham95 · Jul 11, 2020

Mesa stupid. No can rede or rite.

dreamregent · Jul 11, 2020

Many students are poorly educated because the people in control of many of our education systems are more concerned with indoctrinating students with dogmatic beliefs than teaching them how to think about and analyze evidence on their own. The state of Texas is actually a prominent example as it's been in the news in relation to this topic several times over the past few years: a textbook which characterized African slaves as "workers" who came over to help out on plantations within a broader lesson about immigration, minimizing the role of slavery in causing the Civil War, injecting creationism into science textbooks and mandating that students in ... education classes are told that being ... is against the law and unacceptable to society.

betgo · Jul 12, 2020

Mencken did not attend any college or university, so it is not surprising he dismisses higher education.

Primary and secondary history education about the last 300 years can be highly propagandistic. Southern states had state history classes that presented slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction in misleading ways. US history doesn't talk much about the War of 1812, and doesn't indicate that it was a war of aggression quasi allied with Napoleon, or how much of it was badly screwed up. A would assume history education in dictatorships was even more propagandistic.

Piccolo · Jul 12, 2020

sharik said:
education is a indoctrination save where students are taught to think for themselves and self-educate further.

I've heard this theory; like American schoolbuildings even have special Prussian architectural technques that cause students to behave like prisoners and teachesr to behave in a silly manner.

Question is; why would a Prussian model ironically be so bad? Why was the model so popular when western socieites (Such as Scotland or New England) already knew how to educate a public?

BrutusofNY · Jul 12, 2020

Mencken may have a point here worth considering:

“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”

Public education in the U.S from the start meant Protestant-based public education to “educate” non-Protestant immigrants including mandatory bible studies. While the first anti-immigration and educational efforts were focused on eastern Catholics (Irish and south German), problematic effects eventually moved west with the population itself. Catholics responded with their own private Catholic educational system – for example, Notre Dame, Boston College, Holy Cross, and thousands of Catholic parochial schools.

The divisive push of Protestant reform against Catholics was powerful and long lasting. In 1875, Republican President Ulysses S. Grant called for a Constitutional amendment that would mandate free public schools and prohibit the use of public funds for what he called "sectarian" schools. Grant, feared a future with "patriotism and intelligence on one side and superstition, ambition and greed on the other" which he identified with the Catholic Church. Grant, hardly an exemplar of learning even before he discovered whiskey in the army (he graduated twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine at West Point), called for public schools that would be "unmixed with atheistic, pagan or sectarian teaching." In that era “public” schools meant Protestant and given the very large recent Irish, German, and later Italian Catholic immigrations, Grant’s call was anything but balanced.

This kind of thing continued right up to the time of Scopes Monkey Trial, after which Protestants lost control of the public school curriculum (even though they won the case). After that the public school system became secular and today it is the Protestants that most reject public education as they pretty much dominate the Home School Movement.

Catholic educational institutions have had their own scandals of course, but public education in its theory has always been a far cry from what it has been in practice.

Lord Fairfax · Jul 12, 2020

dreamregent said:
Many students are poorly educated because the people in control of many of our education systems are more concerned with indoctrinating students with dogmatic beliefs than teaching them how to think about and analyze evidence on their own.

Yet could there be more to it than that perhaps?

If students are generally uninterested in learning history, civics, philosophy, science etc. then even the best schooling will fall on deaf ears.

An interesting peculiarity of American culture, where it seems there's much less shame about dropping out or not finishing school to persue a business or sports/entertainment career. In much of Europe, even if you've become wealthy there's some embarrassment if one is seen as uneducated or not graduating.

Piccolo · Jul 12, 2020

Lord Fairfax said:
Yet could there be more to it than that perhaps?

If students are generally uninterested in learning history, civics, philosophy, science etc. then even the best schooling will fall on deaf ears.

An interesting peculiarity of American culture, where it seems there's much less shame about dropping out or not finishing school to persue a business or sports/entertainment career. In much of Europe, even if you've become wealthy there's some embarrassment if one is seen as uneducated or not graduating.

I disagree; I'd argue that the United STates overemphasises higher education (that way it can get away with overcharging it); that way the overeducated can blame the undereducated. Basically, every american state blames imaginary rednecks for being backwards. As for the roughly 20 percent (Give or take) of college graduates; that is what is known as a Parretto distribution; it happens.

I am going to go on a serious limb here and suggest that the USA is a big fat middle class misconception on how systems operate.

Leftyhunter · Jul 12, 2020

Piccolo said:
I disagree; I'd argue that the United STates overemphasises higher education (that way it can get away with overcharging it); that way the overeducated can blame the undereducated. Basically, every american state blames imaginary rednecks for being backwards. As for the roughly 20 percent (Give or take) of college graduates; that is what is known as a Parretto distribution; it happens.

I am going to go on a serious limb here and suggest that the USA is a big fat middle class misconception on how systems operate.

Can you cite one state that has ever used or identified the term" redneck" in blaming socetal problem on " rednecks".
Leftyhunter

Martel · Jul 12, 2020

Yeah, I believe we are poorly educated. By design. I recall no one really pushing us to actually think about what we were being taught and to think critically and question it either. I didn't think about it much when I was in the school system (why would I?) but when I think about it now, it was pretty bad. A large emphasis on tests and numbers, overcrowded classrooms that are not conducive to learning the material as much as they want you to believe (if you're lucky you can catch the teachers talking about it too. Mostly the state tests, which no one likes).

This didn't hit me in the face until I went to college. My classes were smaller and we had a lot of in depth discussion about the subject matter of the class and we were encouraged to think and come to our own conclusions.

Basically in the public school system it's all theory, with not way to really gauge what we are doing in a meaningful way. And any skills that can help you when you grow up thrown out the window. You are pushed towards college and almost never told about alternatives like trade school to consider.

And I can't forget the phasing out of field trips. Which are a fine way of having students learn about what they are learning and how it applies to the world outside the classroom. But alas, can't have them.

It's ridiculous. I have theories about it.

samof94 · Jul 18, 2020

betgo said:
Mencken did not attend any college or university, so it is not surprising he dismisses higher education.

Primary and secondary history education about the last 300 years can be highly propagandistic. Southern states had state history classes that presented slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction in misleading ways. US history doesn't talk much about the War of 1812, and doesn't indicate that it was a war of aggression quasi allied with Napoleon, or how much of it was badly screwed up. A would assume history education in dictatorships was even more propagandistic.

Well, yeah. Franco blamed the loss of Cuba on Protestantism.

allthfcs · Jul 19, 2020

Lord Fairfax said:
Yet could there be more to it than that perhaps?

If students are generally uninterested in learning history, civics, philosophy, science etc. then even the best schooling will fall on deaf ears.

An interesting peculiarity of American culture, where it seems there's much less shame about dropping out or not finishing school to persue a business or sports/entertainment career. In much of Europe, even if you've become wealthy there's some embarrassment if one is seen as uneducated or not graduating.

Perhaps it's not really disinterest, there's much that's not even taught. I was too late for Latin, but still had art, chorus, musical instruments, labor studies, industrial arts (workshop)-in middle school. There's a lot missing from the average public school curriculum now.

royal744 · Jul 25, 2020

I had an excellent public education in Houston’s public schools which prepared me well for my time in university.

duncanness · Jul 25, 2020

Having been an observer in the US and Europe, I don't think that Americans are any less educated than others. If contemporary American are "poorly educated," it is in comparison with earlier Americans and not with students from other countries. By the IHL level, it was my distinct impression that US education is general whereas European (particularly British) education is more focussed--but, after post graduate studies, they were all pretty much the same.

School systems vary vastly in this country. Like @royal744, I went through public education schools--mine in New York and Massachusetts. I came out speaking two languages and having a pretty decent grip on basic facts. Except for mathematics

but I must admit the fault was mine--it was a classic case of leading a horse to water...

Piccolo · Jul 25, 2020

duncanness said:
Having been an observer in the US and Europe, I don't think that Americans are any less educated than others. If contemporary American are "poorly educated," it is in comparison with earlier Americans and not with students from other countries. By the IHL level, it was my distinct impression that US education is general whereas European (particularly British) education is more focussed--but, after post graduate studies, they were all pretty much the same.

School systems vary vastly in this country. Like @royal744, I went through public education schools--mine in New York and Massachusetts. I came out speaking two languages and having a pretty decent grip on basic facts. Except for mathematics but I must admit the fault was mine--it was a classic case of leading a horse to water...

Sinece when does Housotn represent all of TX? And the level ot education present in New England (heck even NY was under New England's culture wing for a while) sure as heck doesn't represent the rest of the country.

duncanness · Jul 25, 2020

Piccolo said:
Sinece when does Housotn represent all of TX? And the level ot education present in New England (heck even NY was under New England's culture wing for a while) sure as heck doesn't represent the rest of the country.

As I said, American school systems vary greatly. In any case, the people that I have known and observed over the years is not limited to New Englanders.

Piccolo · Jul 25, 2020

Martel said:
Yeah, I believe we are poorly educated. By design. I recall no one really pushing us to actually think about what we were being taught and to think critically and question it either. I didn't think about it much when I was in the school system (why would I?) but when I think about it now, it was pretty bad. A large emphasis on tests and numbers, overcrowded classrooms that are not conducive to learning the material as much as they want you to believe (if you're lucky you can catch the teachers talking about it too. Mostly the state tests, which no one likes).

This didn't hit me in the face until I went to college. My classes were smaller and we had a lot of in depth discussion about the subject matter of the class and we were encouraged to think and come to our own conclusions.

Basically in the public school system it's all theory, with not way to really gauge what we are doing in a meaningful way. And any skills that can help you when you grow up thrown out the window. You are pushed towards college and almost never told about alternatives like trade school to consider.

And I can't forget the phasing out of field trips. Which are a fine way of having students learn about what they are learning and how it applies to the world outside the classroom. But alas, can't have them.

It's ridiculous. I have theories about it.

My hypothesis is that even mediocre schools wouldn't be so bad were the concept not already obsolete (by the 90s)......AMericans seem to take an overly structured view of things; which seems odd to me.

Hippo Regius · Jul 26, 2020

My experience with American education is a mixed bag. Personally I feel we were cheated in the tech area. Coding should of been taught from an early age and we were sitting on the computers playing games or coloring. I remember we were still coloring in 5th grade..like how about make sure I can do long division. I also was not taught to study properly until I got to the 11th grade. My 11th grade history teacher taught us how to study. I would read the books, or memorize my notes. My 11th grade teacher taught us to use note cards and dry erase boards to re-write notes. That def. helped me in college. Most of our electives were trash. I didn't need foreign language in high school they could of been making sure we knew a trade. I think all HS students need to have a trade, and some computer IT/coding skills. The public school system didn't change with times. Basically if you are wealthy you send your kids to private school or a good charter school, and you send them to math camp, science camp, space camp, computer camp, SAT/ACT prep classes. I didn't find out Asian American students, their parents were sending them to science and math camp, they were practicing SAT/ACT since 5th grade. I know people knew this. The problem is they don't show poor kids in public education how to get a ahead. I remember I took a HS Algebra I book to my third grade teacher and he smiled and said you don't need to know that yet. But I was getting though the easy parts I just needed him to explain to me what a variable was. I could already multiple and divide. And I was reading on the 4th grade level. I don't understand how people who went to college didn't take the time to show kids how to study, nor did they tell us how to prepare for standardized exams. Too many classes were a waste of time. More IT/coding, more trade programs, more math and science. I was ready for Biology in 7th grade, and our science teacher wanted to teach us biology but couldn't. Yeah they wait too long to get us into harder math and science. Don't get me started on the lunches. I starved in the 7th and 8th grade because my family didn't qualify for free lunch. I'm surprised I even learned anything.

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American education

Piccolo

sharik

Volga

Abraham95

dreamregent

betgo

Piccolo

BrutusofNY

Lord Fairfax

Piccolo

Leftyhunter

Martel

samof94

allthfcs

royal744

duncanness

Piccolo

duncanness

Piccolo

Hippo Regius

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