Our education system could get a boost by copying Finland

Yes indeed. Is that a result of phsyiology?

What principals are being taught in schools?

Not a genetic change no.

 

And giving a star athlete a place in the college classroom is as stupid as giving a National Merit student a place on the football team. As far as the money the school makes off sports, any business could do that but doesn't. The NFL was actually founded by corporate teams, but businesses soon got out of it. Second, the college could give scholarships to bimbos and make money off strip bars. Same difference with the sports programs.

However, we should use sports as a role model in re-structuring education. For example, athletic scholarships are given purely on talent; need is irrelevant. But most of all, grade school and high school classes should be divided into academic teams. The team with the highest quiz scores should get Friday off, the lowest team will have to come in on Saturday that week. Individual high-scoring students will get paid to teach the Saturday classes. Team competition and reward, the way kids act naturally.

We should get real. Schoolwork is not some warm and fuzzy "learning for learning's sake."

 

Regarding the bold above...actually it is. We have on average half-assed school facilities, half-assed teachers, half-assed administrators, half-assed funding...and gee golly whiz we are failing about one half of our kids.

I'm sure there are some wonderful teachers and administrators somewhere in the system but I assume they are mostly lost because they represent a fraction of the system.

We have idiot Americans, who elect idiot members of Congress and presidents, and we have idiot legislation which never solves the big problems and is always unfunded...it should be no surprise why the public education system is failing one-half of our kids...

 

Another perceptive sports analogy refutes what you claim. Poorly funded schools that are underperforming academically are also poorly funded in sports, where they perform well. So the focus must be changed to motivating the students, not so much the teachers, through immediate rewards and punishments. The present class-biased motivation to study because of rewards or punishments 5 to 20 years down the line does not motivate, nor is psychologically possible for it to motivate. Really, there is something sick about a kid who lives his life in the future tense. Under our present indentured-servitude system, the students are treated like inanimate objects that can be energized any way the adults imagine will work. An adult imagines that the children have knowledge of their own possible futures and will be dominated by that.

In sports, winning is its own reward. Because it represents a more primitive drive, the hunt, it cannot be copied for a more civilized drive, economic productivity. The students have to be rewarded by getting Friday off or getting paid to teach the Saturday classes. Gingrich's suggestion of giving A students jobs around the school is also perceptive. (Warning: guilt by association is a sign of inadequate education.)

 

ROFLMAO @ giving scholarships to bimbos to make money off strip bars!!!! That would give a new meaning to the Arizona Wildcats!!!

Sorry, couldn't help that.

Seriously, I think you make a strong point that placing a star athlete in the college classroom, without academic merit, is like putting some unathletic, brainy kid on the football team. We have really gotten off base with that. When I was a boy, the place where I am from was big on football. There was a joke that one famous local college president was confronted that the star football player, who was responsible for the team's winning record, was simply not teachable. So the president said, "You people don't know how to relate to the boy. Bring him to me." So they brought the football player to him. The president asked him, "Who was the first president of the United States?" The boy replied, "I don't know." The president said, "That's correct, you don't know. You pass." LOL

Any rate, that's a good point.

 

while your point is valid. It ignores some other points.

For example, last year the University of Arkansas Athletic Department gave $5M to the University's general fund. Now , not every school makes enough money in their athletic department to do that, but most of the big ones make at least some.

That's $5M used to further educate other students. The UA uses that money to help keep tuition costs from skyrocketing.

Another factor to consider is that only a small number of college athletes will ever sample out well enough to go pro. Many of them will play college ball then go get a job. Most of these kids figure that out and actually do take advantage and earn a degree while at the school..Not all of them of course, but many.

 

If a college gave the same expensive housing, expensive food, expensive entertainment, and free tuition to the smart kids, they would be so grateful for their college experience that they would endow the college with millions more than the jocks ever do. The key reason why it would be so much more is that they would graduate self-confident rather than humiliated. They would unionize to get 50% of corporate patents and would make as much as today's CEOs.

Ironically, this was what happened to pro athletes. They got rewards galore as children, in contrast to the High IQs getting starved and insulted. So they unionized and now get 50 times what they made before (5 times inflation adjusted). As an example of how much brains are really worth, Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis, a typical intimidated geek, produced a $300,000,000 invention for his corporate parasites, who only gave him a $30,000 bonus. So by giving pride to the buffed instead of the bright, the universities are missing a real bonanza.

And I don't really care about the rewards the jock graduates who don't turn pro get. Rewarding generic graduates who wouldn't have gotten into college on their brains is the untold reason why our economy droops.

 

your beef appears to be with corporations not colleges. And I actually agree with you, it is shameful that a QB can earn $20M a year while a guy who maybe cures a disease earns $70K a year.

But the truth is, that is a matter of supply and demand, not a matter of colleges letting undeserving kids in.

By the way, pick your local college and look through their endowments sometimes. MANY MANY endowments are given by athletes who maybe they shouldn't have been in college to begin with, but once there they took advantage and then gave back and that allowed many deserving students to attend.

Also, go to say Pasadena and ask the city if they would feel a financial hit if the Trojan football team were to disappear. It's a financial bonanza for cities of big time programs.

 

Again using the sports analogy as a model of what doesn't need to be done in that field, but must be done to encourage mental talent, what kind of football team would a university be able to recruit if the players had to live like the rest of the students? That proves how inferior the rest of the students are. They don't come from a talent pool, but from a puddle of ambitious imbeciles. The insulting absurdity of unpaid education is so obvious to the independent mind that it is a definitive example of the Big Lie.

"To Get a Good Job, Get a Good Education"? How about "To Do a Good Job"? How about if we tell this command economy, "To Get Good Employees, Pay Us in College"? Are you so jealous of their success that you think they should be punished first?

 

Similar to what was pointed out earlier, you could open a nice house of prostitution, give beautiful young women scholarships, let them keep part of the money, and use the net to fund education. If done properly, you could generate far more than that in revenue, if you just want to raise money. I'm serious about that. It would work like a charm. But you incur social costs when you do that, that run contrary to the goals of education. Now I know that's extreme, but the point I'm trying to make is that what he said is well taken. Schools, especially institutes of higher education, have become to absorbed in athletics, to the detriment of education.

 

oh as much as I love college sports, I would agree with you that many schools have put athletics ahead of academics and integrity .

Which is why I was so proud of my alma mater when they fired their top5 football coach for some pretty serious transgressions.

 

Yeah, sports are nice. I was a very good athlete in high school. My family was into all that. Matter of fact, my older brother played pro football for a little while. But one reason that I feel this way, is that I witnessed how that stuff ruined my brother's life. He got a scholarship to go to a really good school. Was treated like a king. But he got to absorbed in that stuff. Quit school before he got his degree to play football. When that didn't work out as planned, he ended up getting an ok manufacturing job, but no where near what he could have gotten if he had finished that school. It's a shame.

 

that is a shame; but would he have been better off if he had not gone to college at all?

And who bears more responsibility for him not taking advantage of the educational opportunities given him. The school, or himself?

 

My brother could have gone to college without that scholarship.

My point is that the mixture of the two things creates a dichotomy that can be unconducive for education.

 

The quality of the brain you start with, I know of no other cause do you?

Oh where to start, how about that the founding principles of our country are to be replaced by no one should do better than others nor be rewarded for excellence because it makes others feel bad and the only people who ever get ahead are greedy and do so by stealing from or taking advantage of others?

 

Yep. That's an example of it right there. Lying to get an advantage. You just told a big lie. It's total crap.

 

Yes, there are numerous other possible causes.

Hmm. The trouble with those are - these principles are non-existent.

 

It certainly can be. And we should take safe guards to ensure that that doesn't happen.

On the other hand, it can also be conducive to education. That is the goal.

 

Wait, PAY people to go to college? Really? WHO pays? I don't want to pay for some dip to screw around for 4 yrs and get a degree in Liberal Arts or European History. Who's being punished? Companies actually PAY to further educate its people by the way. Those of us who are actually valuable=)

 

See, I'm 100% of the opposite opinion.

If it were me , I'd do away with Pel Grants, and student loans. All those do is artificially inflate the costs of a college education.

Instead I think we should have a system where let's say you want to be a teacher but can't afford college. So okay, choose an in state public school and you can sign an agreement that after graduation you will teach at whichever school the state sends you to for an equal amount of time to how long your education took to complete at a reasonable wage and your college is free to you.

That way we get quality teachers in schools which normally have to pay higher wages to get teachers to them at a lower cost to the schools.

For those who after decide they don't want to honor their agreement. No problem just don't allow them to be certified to teach in any state and sue them for the cost of their education.

And that could work in nearly every profession.

 

An analogy that wouldn't be extreme is to give scholarships to rock musicians and keep the proceeds from their records. There are lots of ways to corrupt education and athletics is only one of them. If the "educational" institutions want outside financing, it should be done by those who would benefit most if we had only High IQs in college: businesses and society in general. How pathetic is it that if a teenager is equally superior in athletics and academics, his best bet would be to forget schoolwork and concentrate on developing his athletic talents. Colleges want brawn, not brains. That's the message they are sending with this preferential treatment, and it's being heard loud and clear. America has become like an imaginary small island whose sole economic support is from how many pro athletes it can organize its schools to produce. We are off-track, and onto the track where the race to the bottom is held.

 

As I keep harping...it's really impossible to discuss public education when the collective we cannot find consensus on how to design and 'fund' a public education system.

Should taxpayer dollars fund sports? Should taxpayer dollars fund academics? Should taxpayer dollars be used to pay tuition at private schools and eliminate public education? And no matter one's answer, then follows more complex issues of 'what' is going to be provided?

IMO no sports. Stop public schools from being day-care centers. Monday-Thursday 8-5PM 46 weeks per year. No homework. Schools provide breakfast and lunch and books and supplies. Instead of the current K-12, change this to 3-13, which means so-called primary school is 3-7, secondary school is 8-10, and 11-13 is an under-graduate degree. In parallel provide vocational programs. Don't design a system which assumes all kids are equal and/or focuses on the lowest common denominator...

 

The question should be: Are we better off if athletes are given preference for career opportunities? Quality, not quantity. Our talent pool has been cordoned off. We need to encourage those with the most mental talent, not jocks, preppies, and people who don't mind spending four years without a job. Let the pro leagues fund amateur leagues. It doesn't benefit the public just because it benefits the jock. If the public feels a crying need for good sports in a bad economy, let them fund the pro teams to set up their own minor leagues, which is all a college conference is.

 

Your strawman proves my point about Diploma Dumboes. Who said they'd be paid for such a major? What's more, you imply that they can screw around. They'd be fired, just like at any other job. Because of your defective education, you automatically add things to paid education that make it unlike anything else that is paid for.

I don't recognize your value to the economy or your right to your job; you got it in a way that excludes people who could do your job better than you can; people that the rest of society are dependent upon but aren't getting because of this insulting education. It's an unfunded mandate, typical of the similarity between business and government oppression.

Suppose a coach let you take my position because you did free yard work for him? That's all this brown-nosing "education" means. It puts inferior people in superior positions.

And sacrificing our youth in order to live like a child working without pay in college is the worst punishment the employers can inflict. Their reward is nothing but a Golden Wheelchair. By the time companies pay, it is too late, not only because they can never pay enough to compensate for permanently crippling people through student poverty, but because they don't get the best talent by eliminating those who refuse to put up with the class-biased indentured servitude that is all college really means. College education is a fraud and should not be rewarded. It must be replaced with paid professional training, starting at age 16.

 

Back to Finland. It seems like the main "feature" of the Finnish system is that they rarely ever make any effort to assess academic process. It also seems like their system is geared to preventing exceptional performance.

How do you manage what you don't measure?

Do you deny human variation in ability and motivation?