Are Americans undereducated?

[daeron]

I know that a lot of US's young ppl are here so im wondering what do you think about this issue? how is your educational system and how would you rank yourself vs other countries?

related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

Reputation Comments on this post:

started a very good (but depressing) discussion.

[Nagognog2]

Those videos should be a "Must-Watch" for anyone who either wonders how Bush & Co. got in the White House, or answers in the affirmative when asked if Bush is really the "Education President" he titled himself.

[thegoodfight]

Saying that "America is stupid" is plain stupid itself. Talk about a broad statement. I think one could say "the American education system needs A LOT of work" is a broad, but true statement. Kids need to stop acting like spoiled brats and take responsibility for themselves. Unfortunately this is hard when many parents are incapable of doing this themselves.

There are so many factors that contribute to a child ability (or inability) to learn. I think the main problem with the education system is that it is under-funded and to conservative in many areas.

I think that a lot of America's learning problems started when everything had to become "fun". Teachers were pushed to make their classes "fun", and the nation moved towards an "edutainment" like atmosphere. If children were more disciplined and had goals, I think children would appreciate education much more.

I think one could say "the American education system needs A LOT of work" is a broad, but true statement. Kids need to stop acting like spoiled brats and take responsibility for themselves. Unfortunately this is hard when many parents are incapable of doing this themselves.


I'm sure America's top 5-10% of students are very bright, maybe some of the smartest in the world, but this is impossible to say. I think that all the standardized testing in the world could never truly tell this for sure.


I think it is a very hard job to be a teacher in todays classrooms, from k-12 and even college. American's seem to have a sense of entitlement and complacency that is disgusting in many ways.
I can say this very confidently as I felt the same feelings growing up (probably no where near as bad as most). I never put in 100% effort in school, probably only 70%, where in sports and my jobs, I put in much more effort.

Reputation Comments on this post:

long overdue points

[sci]

Swim personally thinks Britain is stupid and he is british . the general idea in britain that usa is stupid is stupid themeselves.. 2 words jade goodey lol

[chAos]

One of my friends spoke to someone who has been to the usa (from belgium) to study for one year at a university. And he told him the studys are way harder there. So i guess there are both very good and very bad schools in the usa.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Calling america stupid a blanket statement. sure alot of americans are stupid but alot are smart as well. As for the education system, the public education system here is a joke. but we do have some of the finest colleges in the world.

[FrankenChrist]

Originally Posted by chAos

One of my friends spoke to someone who has been to the usa (from belgium) to study for one year at a university. And he told him the studys are way harder there. So i guess there are both very good and very bad schools in the usa.

Depends. I know a Belgian girl whose boyfriend studied at Notre Dame (Ivy League). She looked into some of his syllabi and didn't find them all that difficult.

[Benga]

swim has often heard that the level of education in the USA is rather lower than the european average, but that things even out quickly in university / college courses, especially in post-graduate studies. It is undeniable that united-statian universities attract specialists from around the world because of the salaries and superior working conditions.
what has always struck swim and his friends about the unitedstatian system is that it seems to focus on valuing an individual's thoughts rather than having him first digest what was done before him. This is both interesting and also very annoying for people from other cultures, but it does lead to very diverse and sometimes surprising points of view, which can at times be refreshing because of their novelty. When swim was swimming in the heavily unstitutional neo-marxist legacy social science fields of french universities, new ideas and theories of "north american" or influenced authors were always dealt with a form of caution, seen as an unstable mixture of revolutionary genius and crackpot theories coming out of some enthusiastic fool's rectum...

from swim's personal experience here and abroad, he would definatelty agree that highschools of the USA give people less *knowledge* than their counterparts abroad, but their are good aspects in giving priority to individual thoughts, a kind of anti-japanese system (even though this aspect is changing fast in Japan).
But after all SWIM's uncle, who is from the middle-east, and no rectum talker, teaches at chicago's loyola for a reason after all....even though he did have a stint at the sorbonne, and elsewhere before that...
ever heard of the brain drain ?


b

[ThePopeIsMyPal]

i dont want to be raciest but in school around here its alot of hispanics who just got here from mexico and there english speech is just horrible and they dont care about school so it seems to be the reason the test scores and such are very low in america

Reputation Comments on this post:

very uneducated and ethno-centric statement obviously made by somebody too young to be in this forum

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Yeah, I think its sad alot of schools dont make them take ESL. At my old middle school there were a ton of mexicans who only knew maybe ten words of english and just floated by.

[Benga]

Originally Posted by ThePopeIsMyPal

i dont want to be raciest but in school around here its alot of hispanics who just got here from mexico and there english speech is just horrible and they dont care about school so it seems to be the reason the test scores and such are very low in america

from reading this forum, swim sometimes wonders if written expression, vocabulary and minor details such as spelling are taken this seriously in the said country. Your post seems to indicate that this is the case, and that the non-proficiency of certain groups is correlated with the lowered standards, yet...
That said, there are proportionally quite a few recent emigration populations in (northen) european countries, and mastering new languages is equally hard elsewhere.

[Nagognog2]

You know something? Something tells me you just lost some people when you said "(northern) european countries" in your post.

My reason for this is that never, ever, even once - while I was attending public schools in the USA - did we ever have to study geography. Not even once! A recent survey of recent college graduates, recent as in within the last year, proved that the vast majority of them could not find the state they lived in when shown a map of the USA with the names of states blocked out. To their credit, 67% could find New York and 71% could locate California. Texas came in well also. The rest were well below 50%.

So our college educated students don't exactly shine either. I wonder if the janitor is teaching nuclear physics yet....?

[zera]

Even if America is stupid we just tend to steal all the best and brightest talent from around the world anyway. Just look at how many Indians who were trained by their nation's IITs (almost assuredly the most elite engineering and computer science universities in the world) now reside here, doing work for American firms.

[robertone]

Personally Swim thinks that bad education is a more global problem concerning [almost] the whole western society. In, at least, the Netherlands there is an similar education problem.

By the way, did any-one noticed that the map shown in the second (short) video had all country names mixed up? If one looks more closely one would see that the country named 'Iran' is actually Australia!

Down to the bottemline Swim want to say to the one that say that compentition doesn't improve quality is partly right. Compentition causes better motivation and better motivation improves quality. However, over-compentition (aga over-motivation) will ruin's all efforts simly because the coal will only be reachable by an few.

[Nagognog2]

Originally Posted by robertone

By the way, did any-one noticed that the map shown in the second (short) video had all country names mixed up? If one looks more closely one would see that the country named 'Iran' is actually Australia!

.

That was my favorite part. And the girl being asked which way we should attack them: "From the east...?" Then brain-boy has to show his superior military knowledge and confidently corrects his vagina: "From the West."

No doubt they then went off to breed.

[FrankenChrist]

Hmm. No wonder you need smart people from other parts of the world Possibly $ 500 000 of tax payer money down the drain because of security measure idiocy

[Trebor]

It pains me to say it. But I think Ireland has the most stupid youth. I went to pick up my nephew from school cuase I said I'd jam with him for a while. When I pulled up to his school some kid yelled out "Hey Rick (my nephew) when'd your dad get a new car?" I know the kid who yelled out. He's met my brtoher in law several times! The fact that he's ahalf a foot shorter then me, bald, and doesn't have a beard should have thrown him of!

[ThePopeIsMyPal]

in the second video werent all the countries mixed up on purpose to show that people think Iran and other countrys are really australia

[El Calico Loco]

As a victim - and I don't use the word lightly - of the American public school system myself, I can say that there is a tremendous range. The school I attended in a suburb of Seattle was good; the school I attended in a hick town in rural Oklahoma was awful.

In all my years in the joint, I think I had maybe five really good teachers. The rest were mediocre or horrible. And I had to deal with handfuls of little savages because "every child has a right to an education." Perhaps...but some of them don't care and make it difficult for those who do.

I've grown to hate everything about the American public school system. I think it's a fascist little experiment designed to dumb-down the majority and teach them to obey their betters. Stand and salute the flag! March around when the bells ring! You are Pavlov's dog!

Don't believe it? Read this.

If I had kids, I'd teach them to read, write, and do basic arithmetic and then plop them down in front of the Internet. "There's the world, kid: go get it."


ECL

[FrankenChrist]

Originally Posted by El Calico Loco

Don't believe it? Read this.

If I had kids, I'd teach them to read, write, and do basic arithmetic and then plop them down in front of the Internet. "There's the world, kid: go get it."


ECL

Interesting. I had heard before public education was based on the Prussian system, which was designed to instill obedience to the state.

[Each Hit]

i was home-schooled until i was 8, at which time circumstances prevented my mom from being able to continue as my teacher. by that time i knew how to multiply many-digit numbers, i could do basic division, and i could read at the average 6th grade level. my first day of going to public school, i realized what a long journey it was going to be as most students my age still struggled to do basic addition and some still could not read. i spent the next 10 years pretty much coasting through school without being challenged (even the advanced courses were a joke). by the time i graduated, i had horrible organization, time management, and study skills simply because i never really needed them to keep up.

all this lazing about really screwed me up for college. the public school system i went through did almost nothing to prepare me for the rigors of university. my first semester i essentially flunked out (though i only got one F, my grades were far lower than they should have been), because i didn't study or plan for much of anything.

personally, i understand that i do not represent the majority of american students. that's what scares me. some kids don't realize how much of a joke the system is, and they take it as gospel. kids who didn't (or couldn't) conform to the system were sent to "special" classes and treated as pariahs by the general population. in effect, the system engenders groupthink, prejudice, and ignorance.

they don't even require classes like economics or ethics or logic, three areas in which this country is sorely lacking...

[Riconoen {UGC}]

The conspiracy nut in me thinks that american schools are designed to produce willing slaves for the workforce who won't question anything the government does.

[zera]

Originally Posted by Riconoen {UGC}

The conspiracy nut in me thinks that american schools are designed to produce willing slaves for the workforce who won't question anything the government does.

Not too far off, the original public school system was designed by those in the Know-Nothing Party, a racist xenophobic institution, designed to weed out all the various cultural idiosyncrisies from America's growing immigrant population, and instill traditional "Anglo-Saxon values and mores"

[Riconoen {UGC}]

I thought public schools were first implemented by the puritans?

[Nagognog2]

Originally Posted by Each Hit

personally, i understand that i do not represent the majority of american students. that's what scares me. some kids don't realize how much of a joke the system is, and they take it as gospel. kids who didn't (or couldn't) conform to the system were sent to "special" classes and treated as pariahs by the general population. in effect, the system engenders groupthink, prejudice, and ignorance.

I dropped out of the public schools in November of the 7th grade - despite the screams and threats of my parents. One thing led to another and here I am. Not to shabby education-wise eh? Dropping out from those nazi's was the smartest thing I ever did.

But to get the town to cough up money for my attending private schools, they needed to evaluate me. So I am listed in their files as being retarded and emotionally disturbed. And of course I am. Only a retarded nutcase would think there was something wrong with their utopian system!

(off to eat some paste now....derrrrrr!! derrrrrrrr!!....)