Jason Harvestdancer
Contributor
In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
I can tell you that the current position of the US government is in favor of seeing education as vocational training alone. Nearly every curriculum process I have been involved in since I started teaching has had economic viablity as its critical criterion. They call it "student success", but employability is always what they mean by that; the content of classes is irrelevant unless it connects to the latest buzzwords on Glassdoor somehow. Some in power are willing to give lip service to cultural education, well-informed citizenry etc, but at the end of the day only capitalist considerations will cause a program or policy to be created or destroyed.In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
I can tell you that the current position of the US government is in favor of seeing education as vocational training alone. Nearly every curriculum process I have been involved in since I started teaching has had economic viablity as its critical criterion. They call it "student success", but employability is always what they mean by that; the content of classes is irrelevant unless it connects to the latest buzzwords on Glassdoor somehow. Some in power are willing to give lip service to cultural education, well-informed citizenry etc, but at the end of the day only capitalist considerations will cause a program or policy to be created or destroyed.In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
My sarcasm may betray that I am not exactly on board with this prerogative, but it is what's in practice right now. The traditional liberal arts education, and by extesion the responsibility of the academic system to produce new knowledge and expressions of humanity, are rapidly going extinct.
In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
It's publicly funded daycare. Every time a teacher strike, or schools close, blah blah, there's always news about how parents are scrambling with what to do with their kids.
^^^^ This ^^^^ The chief purpose of compulsory education laws is to make sure children aren't being put to work in sweat shops.In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
It's publicly funded daycare.
^^^^ This ^^^^ The chief purpose of compulsory education laws is to make sure children aren't being put to work in sweat shops.In a very round-about way you spared a sentence for the topic. What is the purpose of education. Is it vocational? Or to teach us our culture? Or to make someone well rounded?
It's publicly funded daycare.
Here's an issue then. The teaching of writing. It is in the province of the English department for historical reasons, but I'm not sure it belongs there.
Overall, one can write about anything. Those who teach writing generally want you to write about their subject matter. So while a student might want to write an essay about baseball, the teacher assigns an essay about the symbolism in Dickens. I'm pretty sure Dickens would prefer to read an essay about baseball. What is being taught is that writing occurs generally in one area, and that is writing about writing. The writing assignment before college is the classic "five paragraph essay" in which the first paragraph is to state your point, paragraphs two through four are to give support for your point, and paragraph five, the concluding paragraph, is basically a restating of the first paragraph in sufficiently different words to make it not the same.
Here's an issue then. The teaching of writing. It is in the province of the English department for historical reasons, but I'm not sure it belongs there.
Overall, one can write about anything. Those who teach writing generally want you to write about their subject matter. So while a student might want to write an essay about baseball, the teacher assigns an essay about the symbolism in Dickens. I'm pretty sure Dickens would prefer to read an essay about baseball. What is being taught is that writing occurs generally in one area, and that is writing about writing. The writing assignment before college is the classic "five paragraph essay" in which the first paragraph is to state your point, paragraphs two through four are to give support for your point, and paragraph five, the concluding paragraph, is basically a restating of the first paragraph in sufficiently different words to make it not the same.
An essay is supposed to be an exploration of a topic, and if an essay is successful it starts with a question and ends with a conclusion. That's my opinion. Some of my favorite papers to write were in my philosophy classes where I really was challenged to make a point.
Just as a music critic need not be a composer, and a writing critic need not be a writer, a teacher of literature need to be a good writer. Yet to learn how to write well, you would want someone who does write to be your teacher, or at least your coach.
But if an English teacher is not the best one to teach writing, who is?
Holy fuck. Seriously- blueprint drawing. The ability to do geometry, to make things look nice? Do you care how things look, taste, feel? Art man. It's art. Which is part of engineering. And engineering is part of art.What is the purpose of the art requirement? Is it to appreciate art, or to practice doing art? Is an art appreciation class what is wanted, or to try to get people to practice making art?
The purpose of the art requirement is that some people want to be artists, so for that to happen you need to expose them to art. This is why the first year of any school program typically includes a broad overview of subjects, so you can sample everything and see what you want to specialize in.
Art specifically isn't super lucrative, but some people want to learn it so they should have that option.
The purpose of the art requirement is that some people want to be artists, so for that to happen you need to expose them to art. This is why the first year of any school program typically includes a broad overview of subjects, so you can sample everything and see what you want to specialize in.
Art specifically isn't super lucrative, but some people want to learn it so they should have that option.
No part of this post is accurate.
But also note that in many high-schools the art requirement dies early, while the math requirement lasts a while. That's not a value judgement, just a shot at it's utility in advanced economies.
It is important to expose children to a wide variety of experiences, because you never know which child might end up being talented in one thing.
I shudder to think how much human genius we squander in this country thanks to our terrible schools.
(point made in two sentences)