[amacachi]

Originally Posted by Overheal

Pretty much. Honors LC Math throws too much at students at once. Trigonometry yay fine... but then eventually you miss one class and suddenly your teacher is rattling on about dy/dx anf f-prime which makes absolutely no sense to you and then 2 days later oh hai it's Integration lets do that thing you didn't quite understand and do it completely backwards. Then lets throw probability and statistics at you to see what sticks. Slow it down a bit. Those things take a good chunk of time to grasp. The earlier the basics are taught the sooner you can teach the more complicated stuff, and have more time to focus on it, rather than throwing it all at students at the end of their 2nd level education.

Even Junior Cert stuff can be pretty daunting. I mean for 8 years you do the stuff you learned in the first two years over and over again with no reference to anything coming up in future. The idea that every function has a graph was something that took me a while to believe ffs.
I agree with what you say though, while I maintain there's nothing particularly difficult in the maths syllabus in this country I do think that it can be pretty daunting for someone who doesn't 100% get it. As you say, miss one day or two days and it's moved on. If students had some kind of reference point as to what each little branch was about it would be a lot easier to slip back into the fold.

Originally Posted by bluewolf

Indeed, maybe if people would stop telling children from go that it's the hardest thing in the whole world ever, they might have more hope

I remember that the very few times in primary school we did anything to do with notation in maths (sigma, x-bar etc. for statistics) it was prefaced with a warning about how difficult it was followed by repetition for a few hours. Calling it difficult is a bad idea obviously but as well as that it would be smarter to do a few different things each day rather than one a day while making the same weekly progress. Start having things click for them from an earlier age and their confidence would improve no end.

[RandomName2]

Originally Posted by Godge

At primary level, the amount of time spent on teaching Irish and religion needs to be reduced with a greater emphasis on science and generic language skills focussing on modern European languages. A move back towards the teaching of basic maths and English literacy skills is also needed - if necessary more focus on tables and grammar.

At second-level, in contrast, a move away from rote learning is required. The requirement to study Irish and English to Junior and Leaving Cert should be dropped - only one of the two languages should be mandated. This would leave it open for someone to take say, Irish, Spanish and French at Leaving Cert but not English. Setting of the exam and correcting of the exam should be taken away from teachers and the exams should become more generalised and random as the current situation leads to the teaching to the exam. I am slightly wary of continuous assessment unless proper quality assurance can be brought in. Teaching of religion at second level should be stopped.

The reduction in the amount of time spent on Irish and religion is probably the most crucial change needed in our education system.

Make English an option for the Junior Cert?

Typo?

Otherwise +1

[Pacifist Pigeon]

Hypocritical as it may sound of me being a student who's benefiting from state subsidised education, I don't think education should ever be funded by the state.

I think that our modern welfare state puts a greater emphasis on the quantity in education, rather than the quality of education. In the long run, this will and is leading to a decline in the quality of graduates and school-leavers.

Education should not be a right, such a rights is unnatural. You're not born with the right to education, it is given to you at the behest of some state or organised body.

Education is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself. It is a choice. To have an individual choice sustained shouldn't be held as natural rights, but rather the right to choose should.

We have to realised that schools/colleges/universities are business and operate as such; always have always will - no matter how rosy an academic idealist might like to frame it.

If no education was publicly funded (absolutely none of it), I'd argue that while the quantity of graduates would diminish somewhat, the quality of graduates would improve greatly. I'd also argue that the price of education would decrease relative to competition, in comparison to private schools/colleges/universities nowadays. This will make it affordable (and don't point out the US as an opposing example because the state gets involved in the funding of student loans, which has a backlash on competition).

[Kinski]

Originally Posted by Pacifist Pigeon

Education is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself. It is a choice. To have an individual choice sustained shouldn't be held as natural rights, but rather the right to choose should.

Four-year-olds lining up for their first day of school are not engaged in the "voluntary improvement" of themselves. Should they therefore be denied an education?

We have to realised that schools/colleges/universities are business and operate as such; always have always will - no matter how rosy an academic idealist might like to frame it.

So Plato's Academy was a business?

[Pacifist Pigeon]

Originally Posted by Kinski

Four-year-olds lining up for their first day of school are not engaged in the "voluntary improvement" of themselves. Should they therefore be denied an education?

Well in that case, it's the parents decision to educate their child in a particular institution. And who's "denying" someone an education?

Originally Posted by Kinski

So Plato's Academy was a business?

Yes. A not-for-profit business.

[Kinski]

Originally Posted by Pacifist Pigeon

Well in that case, it's the parents decision to educate their child in a particular institution. And who's "denying" someone an education?

Your argument is that education can't be regarded as a basic right because it "is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself," which is inaccurate, because children are not capable of engaging in such voluntary improvement. No one could ever improve themselves in such ways if they had not been educated as a child (when it was not their decision).

So your actual position appears to be that children should not have a right to an education, rather their parents or some other guardian should decide on their behalf whether or not they receive one, correct?

Yes. A not-for-profit business.

So far as I'm aware, Plato did not even charge fees to his students. In what sense was it a business?

[RubyRoss]

Originally Posted by Pacifist Pigeon

If no education was publicly funded (absolutely none of it), I'd argue that while the quantity of graduates would diminish somewhat, the quality of graduates would improve greatly.

On top of what Kinski has already written, your reasoning isn't very clear.

The quantity of students would not just 'diminish somewhat' if all subsidy was removed but instead drop dramatically as few could actually afford 20 years of education.

I can only assume you expect the quality to improve because the class-sizes will be miniscule. Apart from that there is no relation between being wealthy enough to afford education and actually being a good student.

No too long ago only wealthy people could enter the professions and there was no examination of ability for entering just money. Dr Ivor Browne recalls doing Medicine because law was too difficult and he describes a class peopled with not very bright but rich students who didn't really want to be doctors in the first place.

[Pacifist Pigeon]

Originally Posted by Kinski

Your argument is that education can't be regarded as a basic right because it "is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself," which is inaccurate, because children are not capable of engaging in such voluntary improvement. No one could ever improve themselves in such ways if they had not been educated as a child (when it was not their decision).

My argument that it isn't a basic right because it isn't a natural right. It is something that can only be given to you by a state or an organised institution. These sort of rights are fallacious as they assume the infinite supply of resources to provide such education, when in fact there is only finite resources available.

Originally Posted by Kinski

So your actual position appears to be that children should not have a right to an education, rather their parents or some other guardian should decide on their behalf whether or not they receive one, correct?

At that age, yes.

Originally Posted by Kinski

So far as I'm aware, Plato did not even charge fees to his students. In what sense was it a business?

What are the characteristics of a not-for-profit business, isn't boards.ie an example?

[deise go deo]

Originally Posted by Pacifist Pigeon

Hypocritical as it may sound of me being a student who's benefiting from state subsidised education, I don't think education should ever be funded by the state.

I think that our modern welfare state puts a greater emphasis on the quantity in education, rather than the quality of education. In the long run, this will and is leading to a decline in the quality of graduates and school-leavers.

Education should not be a right, such a rights is unnatural. You're not born with the right to education, it is given to you at the behest of some state or organised body.

Education is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself. It is a choice. To have an individual choice sustained shouldn't be held as natural rights, but rather the right to choose should.

We have to realised that schools/colleges/universities are business and operate as such; always have always will - no matter how rosy an academic idealist might like to frame it.

If no education was publicly funded (absolutely none of it), I'd argue that while the quantity of graduates would diminish somewhat, the quality of graduates would improve greatly. I'd also argue that the price of education would decrease relative to competition, in comparison to private schools/colleges/universities nowadays. This will make it affordable (and don't point out the US as an opposing example because the state gets involved in the funding of student loans, which has a backlash on competition).

Why should the children of wealthy people be favored over the children of poor people?

There is no difference in the potential ability of the offspring of the two groups, so why should one be allowed an advantage in succeeding over the other, surely it would be better to foster genius wherever it comes from rather than allowing those with money to unbalance the playing field.

[southsiderosie]

MOD NOTE:

This topic of this thread is "what is the point of education". It is not, "should education be publicly funded". If anyone would like to start a thread on that topic, then feel free. Otherwise, let's re-focus on the topic of this thread.