My Take on Education
~ by Hénock Gugsa ~
My take on Education
[Conversation in Facebook]
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HG ===> I never liked it in school when they talked of percentiles and standard deviation bullshit when assessing where a student stood vis-à-vis his peers. Later in life, I began to appreciate the "school of life" because it made more sense to me ... like applied algebra ! 🤔 😁 😁 😁
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FCM ===> School education is the backbone of how we will educate ourselves further down the road. It is important to evaluate pupils vs their peers, because it's a way to tell them how they perform, and also evaluate who, as an example, can go to med school.
Schooling is not perfect, but it's necessary, no bullshit there, as long as the schooling system is fact based. which goes without saying.
Hénock, I understand you because after my dad died and 6 months later our house was lost to fire, 2 weeks before I changed school, I developed a severe ADD that affect me to the point of passing from 1st in class, to 30th. I thought I was losing my mind, could not retain anything, and it took me 24 months to get back in the 1st two of the class, in Secondaire-III at Collège Bourget.
By chance I had people in the family who never lost faith in me and my potential.
But ADD stayed with me, and it prevented me from doing what I would have loved to do, becoming a physician... sad? No, not at all, because I lived a life of adventure that most don't have access to, like you and Nancy. 😉
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NZ ===> FC: Girls and brown people were informed of their being crappy, no statistics being supplied...
I was told,
" There are no women artists. There is no female Picasso!"
I replied," Then I'll be the first!"
Fortunately, I had tons of support. My non artistic, non alcoholic parents best friends were alcoholic artists. They advised I go to the Art Students League in NYC, best advice ever!
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FCM ===> NZ: there's nothing we can do about stupidities of the past, let',s move one and promote fact based ideas in order to prevent future slippery slopes and mind farts.
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HG ===> FC: When we say "peers", don't we mean equals or equivalents ? So why do we then go and evaluate them against each other? And if we do go ahead and evaluate them, aren't we saying they're not peers? What is the final measure of one's superiority and by whose parameters and measure ?! 🤔
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HG ===> I don't mean to knock down educational systems in toto ! I know and appreciate their value as foundations for further learning down the road because learning never ends, curiosity never ends, and challenges never end. However, when one considers some of the methodologies and practices of the educators, one finds there is no consistency.
You may find you like or understand one teacher better than another because of the way they teach the subject matter. Some teachers prepare the lessons to be pleasurable and not onerous.
[ A sideline observation: I used to wonder (and I still do) why some teachers assume students know the answer to any question before it is asked? In my mind, I'd go: I should be the one asking the questions, and you should be the one knowing the answers. If I knew the answers, why should I be here wasting my time ! ]
The other aspect of education is in the area of good learning material, namely text books and such ! Generally, the best of these are written by actual teachers who have interfaced with students and know their problems and concerns. Text books by some genius with his head in the clouds can sometimes be actually dull and boring (unstimulating) !
Teachers have a great opportunity to counsel students because they can observe the strengths and weaknesses of each student in all areas: the specific subject matter being taught, the student's analytical and expressive talents, the student's potentials overall. So screw the percentiles, screw the comparisons of students to their peers. Instead, give them guidance and assurance early and often!
In my personal experience, I have known only less than a handful dedicated teachers who have bothered to go beyond the call of duty and make a life-impacting difference in any student's life !
