Education - Overhaul?

L.Jenkins

Reading the other thread in relation to our current Governments less than favourable increase in fees, grant reduction etc. I'm wondering what ideas do you have in relation overhauling the educational system as it is, leaving aside financial costs for.

The idea of independent thinking and learning did come up and many people were only introduced to this idea in college. Alittle late in my opinion. So should independant thought and learning be introduced at a much younger age, pre-junior cert even?

The idea that being given only so much information and told to go research and find the rest, might leave some students at a disadvantage, but would it actually encourage learning and a higher quality of education and knowledge base that may actually drag us out of a recession?

pragmatic1

Have a class on communication, one on problem solving/creating something and one on basic economics.

7Sins

Yea school's rubbish :cool:

Howabout school until 3rd year, a year out to "discover" yourself + having continuous assessment in stuff and then two years of a pre college course in school geared towards what you want to do in 3rd level? in other words, there's no point studying engineering if you want to be an accountant :pac:

The Outside Agency

I don't like the way modules in courses are mandatory..especially those which are absolutely useless for the career you've chosen to pursue.

Open University allows you to select modules relevant to your career path.. you choose the modules and they decide how many points each are worth... this makes more sense to me.

If I want to study IT, I'll study relevant modules instead of what the college deems "necessary" to pass the course.
The college forces you to do work which at times has no benefit in future.

For example, in computer course I did, one of the modules required writing essay on anything unrelated to your course...what a waste of time IMHO.

Another was UML and Programming being taught as separate modules...why do that? another fine waste of time AND money.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

More practical items. I said meditation at one point, but I think people accused me of either bringing back prayer or being anti-religious, whcih is weird, because meditation is about neither prayer not religion.

Some from of envirnomental science mixed in with sustainable development.

Also, how to balance a household budget. I'd like to say responsible fiscal planning, but that won't work if people are irresponsible.

Make doign at least one creative subject (of their choice) mandatory.

I'd also like to see debate ratehr than learn this and reguritate it.

Doc Ruby

7Sins wrote: »

Howabout school until 3rd year, a year out to "discover" yourself

Maybe swap the year out for a year where you get to try out the basics of a wide variety of college courses and trades, speak to people in various industries, and get a better idea of what third level education is and where it leads? Mix in some civics and economics courses, citizens responsibility to know the issues, and naturally some kung fu.

What, they teach that in PE all over asia.

coffee_cake

As long as the year out is optional...

L.Jenkins

I think that maths and a language would be unavoidable as a choice of module. Maybe a solution to both would be to introduce more practical applications and conversation. The idea of regurgitating is a bit defuct.

Example. I spent a considerable amount time learning Irish and still can't speak the language like most people. Maybe if the hold off for a few years and get the through the basics first. As for learning a language, it usually comes through speaking and not reading it from a book.

Chuck Stone

ItsThatManAgain wrote: »

The idea of independent thinking and learning did come up and many people were only introduced to this idea in college. Alittle late in my opinion. So should independant thought and learning be introduced at a much younger age, pre-junior cert even?

This may be controversial but I don't think independent learning and critical thinking can be taught.

The right teacher/tutor may be able to nurture it but that certainly isn't what school is about.

Can you imagine a young person asking the teacher difficult questions about why the world has to be the way it is? Most teachers wouldn't have time at one end of the scale and at the other end some teachers would probably just view the child as troublesome.

whiteandlight

There's a fairly straight forward fix to the problem "students don't think for themselves" at secondary school. Students don't think for themselves because they don't have to. All the papers have become fairly predictable. Why bother learning to write essays yourself when you could just rote learn 5 A1 essays and regurgitate? Can you blame them? Change the format of the papers in a similar way to Project Maths and things will have to change.

Not saying anyone will like it-parents, students and teachers alike are horrified at the non-predictability of the new maths course. You can't break it down by question anymore but it had reached ridiculous heights. For example I went looking for old simpsons rule questions to convert into the trapezoidal rule questions for my OL class last year. For 11 years in a row simpsons rule came up on Q1B. 11 years??! The predictability has to go. Yes it will make the courses harder but at least it would mean students have to actually learn how to do things as opposed to remembering where they were told this would come up etc etc.